Dodgers Face NLCS Sweep as Brewers Go Up Three Games

The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 on Wednesday night in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series at Dodger Stadium, taking a 3-0 series lead and pushing the back-to-back World Series champions toward an NLCS sweep. Milwaukee took both games in Wisconsin, 2-1 and 7-4, and is now one win away from its first World Series appearance since 1982, and from completing an NLCS sweep.

The Dodgers must win four straight games to stave off an NLCS sweep and keep their championship defense alive, a feat only one team in baseball history has managed. The 2004 Boston Red Sox remain the lone club to rally from three games down to win a postseason series, beating the New York Yankees in the ALCS, according to ESPN's postseason coverage. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts played on that Boston team, and he has told reporters he has lived through such a comeback before.

Game 3 turned on an 11-pitch at-bat

Jackson Chourio set the tone before most fans had settled in. The Brewers outfielder ambushed Dodgers starter Blake Snell on the game's opening pitch, driving a 97.6 mph fastball over the right-field fence for a leadoff home run. According to the Seoul Economic Daily, it was the 17th first-pitch leadoff homer in the postseason since MLB began tracking pitches in 1988, and Chourio did the same thing against these Dodgers in last year's NLCS. He now owns the record for most postseason home runs by a player under 23.

Snell steadied after the early jolt, retiring 14 consecutive batters and holding the 1-0 margin into the sixth. Los Angeles finally broke through when Will Smith's double scored a pair of runs, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the night at 2-1. That advantage lasted about half an inning.

Milwaukee answered in the seventh with the at-bat of the postseason so far. After spoiling several tough pitches from Snell in a grinding duel, Jake Bauers launched the 11th pitch of the at-bat, a 97.8 mph fastball, 412 feet into the right-field seats for a two-run homer that restored the Brewers' lead. Garrett Mitchell followed a batter later with a 428-foot solo shot that ended Snell's night and pushed Milwaukee to the edge of an NLCS sweep. Brice Turang scored on a wild pitch in the eighth, and Joey Ortiz's RBI single in the ninth finished the scoring.

Snell struck out nine over six innings but took the loss. Brewers rookie Robert Gasser held Los Angeles scoreless across five innings to open the game. The Dodgers finished with five hits and went without a home run for the third consecutive game of the series, a drought that has defined their October. Shohei Ohtani went 1-for-2 with a walk in Game 3, but according to USA Today he is batting .182 in the postseason with seven strikeouts and has not recorded an extra-base hit since Sept. 24. His slump is one more reason an NLCS sweep is on the table.

Why the Brewers keep winning

Thirteen of fifteen ESPN analysts picked Milwaukee before the series began, and the Brewers have spent three games validating the choice. Milwaukee owned the best record in baseball during the regular season, and according to a TSN roundup of ESPN's panel, its bullpen has been the difference: fresh arms keep arriving while the Dodgers' bats fade late. At this point, an NLCS sweep looks less like an upset than the form book's pick.

The numbers behind the deficit are stark. Los Angeles is batting .146 with runners on base in the series, per the ESPN analysis cited by TSN. The resource gap sharpens the story: the Dodgers carried a $339 million payroll this season, the highest in baseball, while the Brewers ranked 19th. Big spending buys no guarantees in October, in any sport: golf's costliest split also went final this week, as Jon Rahm's LIV Golf exit became official. The Dodgers' spending, meanwhile, reflects a sport swimming in broadcast money; this year sports media rights became a sixty-six-billion-dollar business. In the American League, the championship series resumes Thursday afternoon in Cleveland, where the winner will face whichever club survives this series.

The turnaround from last October is complete. Twelve months ago, the Dodgers swept Milwaukee out of the NLCS, outscoring the Brewers 15-4 in the process. Now the roles have flipped, and the team that was swept is one win from delivering an NLCS sweep of its own.

What Thursday offers the Dodgers

Game 4 is set for Thursday at 8 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium, according to Fox's Game 4 listing. Tyler Glasnow starts for Los Angeles; his one start this postseason was a win over Atlanta. Milwaukee has not named a starter and is expected to lean on its bullpen, which has carried the team through October. Los Angeles will have its top relievers fresh, since none of them pitched in Game 3.

If the Dodgers win Thursday, Tarik Skubal and Yoshinobu Yamamoto would be lined up for Games 5 and 6, giving Los Angeles its two best starters with the season on the line. That is the path to denying the NLCS sweep. It starts with beating a Milwaukee team that has looked like the best club in baseball for a week, and with delaying an NLCS sweep by at least a day.