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Postseason 2026: Milwaukee Broomers
October 16, 2026
Last night, when Shohei Ohtani blasted a three-run homer in the second inning to put the Dodgers up 4-0, it seemed like we’d be headed for a fifth NLCS game. The Brewers and Pat Murphy would work their B bullpen, the Dodgers would get some tack-on runs to make their stats look better, and we’d get a Tarik Skubal/Jacob Misiorowski rematch tonight. When the Brewers went down 1-2-3 in the top of the third, that path seemed set.
The Brewers, though, just kept coming. Even in that three-up, three-down third, Cooper Pratt worked a nine-pitch strikeout. In the fourth, Brice Turang drew a six-pitch walk, and Jake Bauers drove in two runs with a double on the sixth pitch he saw to make it 4-2. Taking the mound in the fifth, Glasnow needed five pitches to retire each of the first two batters of the inning, and he wouldn’t get through the frame.
When I think about Brewers 4, Dodgers 0, the first thing I’ll picture is a Brewers batter taking a pitch just outside the zone, or fouling one off just inside it. The Brewers saw 4.13 pitches per plate appearance in sweeping the Dodgers, a mark that would have comfortably led MLB this season. They drew 18 walks in four games. They drew 22 full counts and slugged .813 with four extra-base hits when they did. The signature moments of the series were a 12-pitch walk and an 11-pitch homer, both by NLCS MVP Jake Bauers.
There are going to be people who really, really want the Brewers’ success to be about smallball and contact and running the bases and defense. The Brewers do play excellent defense and they run the bases pretty well and they do use one-run strategies. The key to their offense, though, is patience, and in this series, they leaned into the Three True Outcomes. They combined for 70 home runs, walks, and strikeouts for a TTO% of 47%. Adam Dunn’s career TTO mark is 49%. They swung at just 45% of the pitches they saw, slightly above their league-leading 44% mark during the season. The 2026 Brewers have a lot more in common with the 1990s Yankees than they do the 2010s Royals.
The Brewers didn’t chase the game, but nevertheless they caught it. When they did, tying it in the fifth, taking the lead in the sixth, Pat Murphy went for the kill. He called on Aaron Ashby to start the seventh and never looked back. Continuing a bit of a theme this October, Ashby threw the final three innings of the game, facing 11 batters, walking no one and striking out three. Ashby threw 6 2/3 shutout innings in the NLCS. But for Bauers going nova, Ashby might have been the series MVP. Ashby allowed a couple of doubles, but he followed them by wiping out the Dodgers’ hitters.
After finally breaking through with some big hits in the second, the Dodgers went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position over the rest of their season. One-out doubles in the sixth and eighth, and a leadoff double in the seventh, were all left stranded. The Dodgers, contra the Brewers, didn’t draw a walk after the third batter of the game, and they got to just two three-ball counts over the game’s final eight innings.
The Dodgers hit .185/.270/.250 with one homer and 11 runs in the series, and that’s why they’re going home early. They didn’t score in their last seven times up. The quality of their at-bats late in the game was terrible; Max Muncy, Shohei Ohtani, and Teoscar Hernandez all were made to look awful in high-leverage spots by JoJo Romero and Ashby.
Nothing worked for L.A. Glasnow, staked to a 4-0 lead, couldn’t get out of the fifth. The bullpen walked in the tying run and allowed solo homers to Garrett Mitchell to break the tie and David Hamilton to extend the lead. Dave Roberts issued another bad intentional walk that led to the tying run, had Kiké Hernandez bunt (I cannot get clarity on whether this was a manager call or not; it may not have been) a runner to third with nobody out to set up a very bad Ohtani/Ashby matchup, and tried to get three innings out of Edwin Diaz.
The Dodgers were the second-best team in a playoff series for the first time in a long time. All of the concerns that existed about this team a week ago -- aging offense, weak corner defense, erratic bullpen -- were on display over four games. What was supposed to save the team was the starting rotation, which carried the team to last year’s championship. Dodger starting pitchers were staked to leads, however small, in every game, and blew each of them. (Technically, Glasnow left with a lead, but I don’t think that’s how history will remember his effort after being up 4-0 and being charged with four runs.) Their starters had a 6.50 ERA in this series and allowed four homers.
The Brewers are 7-1 in the tournament, and that’s while getting just 8 1/3 innings from Jacob Misiorowski, with Jackson Chourio hitting .171/.211/.343 out of the leadoff spot, with Cooper Pratt making three errors on the record and a couple of other plays not made ($1, Jamey Newberg) that cost the Brewers. They’re firing on most cylinders, just not all of them. Now they get a week of rest for a World Series in which they’ll be the better team and have home-field advantage. Their story may not have peaked.
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