MILWAUKEE — A year ago, when the Dodgers swept the Brewers in the NLCS, Los Angeles was a stronger team than it is now and Milwaukee was a significantly weaker one.
But as these teams clash for the right to advance to the World Series yet again, the playing field has evened.
“Going into last year's post-season, I didn't know if I was going to be on the roster,” recalled Jacob Misiorowski, who will start Game 1 opposite Tarik Skubal Sunday. “I didn't know if I was going to make it and help the team. This year they trust me a little more. So it's a little easier to get behind yourself.”
And by extension, it’ll be a little harder for the Dodgers. Yes, they’ve added Skubal and Kyle Tucker since last year’s NLCS. This team’s still so talented. But their best player isn’t pitching at all — and he’s not himself at the plate, either. Plus, the Dodgers' bats aren’t clicking either, with two and a half weeks elapsed since they last scored more than five runs in a game.
Ultimately, anything can happen in a seven-game series. But in an NLCS charged with narratives, the talent on the field is far more equal than the teams’ respective payrolls or market sizes might suggest. And while a third consecutive Dodgers championship would surely help MLB owners push for a salary cap, the Brewers are a living, breathing counterpoint to the idea that small-market teams can’t win.
“Nobody here is worried about that,” Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said. “We're focused on trying to win, and I think we have for a while. Regardless of what the economics look like, the guys in there believe, and so do I.”
Speaking from the interview room at American Family Field on Saturday, Brewers manager Pat Murphy likened the rematch against the Dodgers to a fight.
“You fight a guy once and (when) you fight him the second time, you should have a better idea,” he said. “Everything's different. The guy is a little different … even though it's the same person, they've got a different strategy, maybe different personnel. We have different personnel. But the familiarity doesn't hurt.”
Murphy called Shohei Ohtani the "classiest guy in the world," but no one’s calling Ohtani the scariest hitter in the world these days. Nagging injuries are clearly limiting the four-time MVP, who went 2-for-13 with a pair of singles in the NLDS and hasn’t homered since Aug. 18.
By moving Ohtani down to fifth in the batting order, manager Dave Roberts tacitly acknowledged that the 32-year-old isn’t at his best right now. This is a diminished version of the player who crushed three homers in one game to clinch last year’s NLCS.
Of course, this is a player who’s made a career of defying expectations. If anyone can break free of a slump and win the series by himself, it’s Ohtani. From Misiorowski’s standpoint, there’s no letting up.
“No, no. You can't change,” he said. “You got to still pitch like he's the best in the world and trust your stuff.”
With a fastball that touches 105 m.p.h., Misiorowski has more raw stuff than just about anyone. Along with potential Game 2 starter Logan Henderson, he has helped transform a Brewers pitching staff that relied on opener Aaron Ashby to start two of their first three NLCS games a year ago.
Mind you, the Dodgers’ pitching staff is even better. Adding Skubal to a rotation featuring Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow gives the Dodgers an elite top four, even without Ohtani. That group allowed the Dodgers to beat the Atlanta Braves in four games despite some middling offence.
Interestingly, the Brewers were reportedly in pursuit of Skubal when the Tigers made him available at the trade deadline.
“Probably not going to get into a ton of specifics around what that looked like,” Arnold said. “But every team was looking to acquire good players at the deadline, and ultimately they landed a really good one in Tarik Skubal.”
Murphy said his 11-year-old took some swings against Skubal on the team’s Trajekt pitching machine, which replicates the exact velocity and spin of any MLB pitcher as a training tool for hitters.
“Everybody wants a look,” the manager said with a smile.
So how’d the kid do?
“He struggled,” Murphy acknowledged.
The 24-year-old Misiorowski is likely to join Skubal and Snell as a Cy Young Award winner next month, but he’s still excited for the chance to oppose Skubal, who won each of the last two seasons.
“Obviously it's cool,” he said. “The dude's insane.”
The same can be said for the Dodgers’ entire roster. Tucker, their $60-million right fielder, bats eighth. Andy Pages, an all-star in centre, bats ninth. And while few teams can manage the $240 million commitment Tucker obtained, all 30 of them could afford the $300,000 it took to land Pages as an international free agent in 2018.
Even if they’re a little diminished, the Dodgers are outrageously talented. But the Brewers are, too, which makes Round 2 of this fight so intriguing.
“That's the way you'd want this storybook ending,” Murphy said. “When you're writing the last words of the Milwaukee Brewers championship, you'd want it to go through the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's the way it has to be.”
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