LOS ANGELES — Afterwards, once the Milwaukee Brewers had celebrated on the field at Dodger Stadium and Jake Bauers had been named NLCS MVP, the Los Angeles Dodgers tried to make sense of the sweep within their clubhouse.
Cameras swarmed Shohei Ohtani, still sweating from the exertion of the game. Blake Snell and Tarik Skubal sat quietly at their lockers side by side. Pending free agents Kiké Hernandez and Miguel Rojas answered questions about the future.
“You’ve got to realize this game is hard,” Freddie Freeman said. “Sports is hard. Life is hard. Sometimes you can give it your all and still come short, and it happened for us.”
One year after sweeping the Brewers in the NLCS, baseball’s two-time defending champions were now on the other side of a sweep. And while the Dodgers conceded defeat, the Brewers popped champagne in celebration.
“They sent us home (last year) and you would have thought it was a handshake line at a Spring Training game,” Bauers recalled. “That's something that I carried with me. It was a little bit of motivation to just say, we've got to keep going until there's not another game left to play.”
The Brewers win overshadowed a dramatic home run from Ohtani and disappointed 49,104 fans still hoping for a third straight championship. Instead, it’s Milwaukee who will represent the National League in the World Series in a battle of small markets against either Cleveland or Tampa Bay.
“It never feels good to lose, but when you get beat, you can handle it a little bit better,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “We just got beat.”
The 100-win Dodgers are a great team, but not the best team in baseball anymore, or even the best team in the National League. That honour goes to the Brewers, who secured the pennant with a sweep of the Dodgers thanks to a go-ahead home run from Garrett Mitchell, some tenacious rallies in the middle innings and impressive relief pitching.
“We got outplayed in all facets,” Roberts said. “Those guys played flawless.”
With the score tied at four in the top of the sixth, Tanner Scott threw a fastball down the middle and Mitchell crushed it.
In that moment, reality set in for the two-time defending champions and their fans: their reign atop MLB might be ending. And a few innings later, when Aaron Ashby retired Hernandez for the final out of a 6-4 win, it was all over.
There were late chances to score Kyle Tucker from second and Will Smith from third, but in the end the Dodgers failed.
“It’s simple,” said Teoscar Hernandez. “We didn’t do our job.”
All series, the Brewers outplayed the Dodgers. They hit more home runs, they played better defence and they pitched better. And really, that should come as no surprise. This team has reached the post-season eight of the last nine seasons, including each of the last four NL Central titles.
“The truth is these guys are a special group,” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy. “They're together. They care about each other. I love the Dodgers. I love their players. They've got legendary players. But we came in with a group that would not be denied. They were hungry, very hungry.”
But still, the Dodgers are baseball’s preeminent team, so when Ohtani demolished a Dustin May cutter to give the Dodgers an early 4-0 lead, their path to victory seemed to open up again. As the ball soared into the right field bleachers, Ohtani bounced backwards towards first base and yelled at his teammates in the third base dugout. It may be the most emotion he’s ever shown on a big-league field.
"It was something that you don't see very often from Shohei. I think it was a lot of pent-up anger, frustration," Roberts said. "It just shows how much he cares."
“We felt really confident that we were going to win,” Hernandez added. “But they never stopped.”
Considering the context, Ohtani’s home run was all the more significant. Just two days ago, there was talk of benching him given his middling performance and knee and biceps injuries. Then came a stellar performance in Game 3 and his Game 4 home run, the first one he’s hit since August 18.
“I’ll always trust Shohei,” Roberts said. “I think he's the best player on the planet, and he's not completely healthy. But I just give him a lot of respect for not running from it.”
Yet aside from Ohtani’s big swing, the Dodgers simply didn’t have answers offensively. No one else homered in the NLCS. In fact, they had just five other extra-base hits this series — all doubles. A team known for its high-powered offence had produced backup catcher-type numbers when it counted most.
“It’s hard to put into words how much this hurts right now,” said Max Muncy. “We left it all out there, and the train finally ran out of steam, I guess, but it just sucks.”
They needed to hit or see their season end, no in-between. And they didn’t hit, so their season ended.
“We’re definitely disappointed,” Ohtani said via interpreter. “I want to use this as a catalyst to have a better season.”
The Brewers, on the other hand, managed just enough offence. David Hamilton added a late home run and Bauers drove in three, including two with a pivotal double in the fourth inning. All series, they found answers against the Dodgers team that allowed the fewest runs in MLB this regular season.
Oddly enough, this will be the first time the Brewers represent the National League in the World Series. When they made it in 1982, they were still an American League team and lost to the Cardinals in seven games.
The Dodgers were seeking the first MLB three-peat since the 1998-2000 Yankees and only the fifth in MLB history (Athletics 1972-74; Yankees 1949-53; Yankees 1936-39). Instead, they’ll turn their attention to the off-season, with Rojas, Hernandez, Alex Vesia and, most notably, Skubal all headed for free agency.
“Sometimes you're just gonna be short,” Freeman said. “I’ve been playing this game a long time, only won three times. That's a lot of hurt at the end of the season. Sometimes you just get beat.”
Meanwhile, the Brewers will participate in a World Series featuring two of MLB’s lowest payrolls, undermining the narrative that MLB needs a salary cap for small-market teams to compete. The Brewers didn’t just beat the Dodgers, they dominated them thanks to elite player acquisition, strong player development and a strong team culture.
Soon enough, more tests await the Brewers. First, though, it’s time for a well deserved celebration.
"It's a beautiful thing,” Murphy said.
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