For five innings on Thursday afternoon, the Dodgers waited.
For impossible shadows to vacate the playing surface after a 3:08 p.m. start at Dodger Stadium.
For Milwaukee Brewers rookie star Jacob Misiorowski to lose steam after an electric start to his bulk-relief outing.
For a door to open that their veteran club, seeking a 3-0 lead in the National League Championship Series, could finally exploit.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, it arrived.
With a two-run rally fueled by professional hitting, aggressive baserunning and a little cat-and-mouse game with the pitch clock, the Dodgers broke an early tie and took a lead they wouldn’t relinquish, moving to the doorstep of the World Series with a 3-1 defeat of the Brewers in Game 3 of the NLCS.
The decisive rally followed five innings of frustration.
Tyler Glasnow carved up Brewers hitters on one side, giving up just one run over 5 ⅔ innings. Misiorowski did the same to the Dodgers, following opener Aaron Ashby, who gave up a run two batters into his outing, with five innings of almost perfect relief.
In the sixth, however, the Dodgers flipped the script — finally getting more favorable circumstances, and immediately manufacturing a couple of runs.
First and foremost, Misiorowski’s velocity, which was previously 100 mph or more with his fastball and up to 96 mph with his slider, started dipping. The shadows that had tortured hitters all day, leaving home plate covered in shade while the outfield batter’s eye was drenched in sun, also suddenly subsided.
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With one out, Will Smith took advantage by hitting a hanging 95-mph slider to left for a single. Then, Freddie Freeman drew a walk in a strategic battle with the 23-year-old pitcher, whose plan to hold the ball against Freeman as the pitch clock wound down was thrown back in his face by Freeman standing outside the batter’s box as long as possible.
With two runners aboard, and Misiorowski facing his first real stress since inheriting two runners back in the first, Tommy Edman hit a first-pitch slider (this one at just 94 mph) to center to break a 1-1 tie.
As the relay throw came into the Brewers' infield, Freeman made an aggressive — and ultimately rewarding — decision to go all the way to third from first.
The move paid off two batters later. While heavily used Brewers closer Abner Uribe (who was making his fourth outing in the last six days) set Teoscar Hernández down swinging for a key second out, he then made a back-breaking mistake: Firing an errant pickoff throw to first that got past Andrew Vaughn and trickled up the right-field line.
Freeman trotted the 90 feet home with ease. The Dodgers had a 3-1 lead that their bullpen — which used Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen, Anthony Banda and Roki Sasaki for the final 10 outs — protected. And now, entering Game 4 on Friday night, the Dodgers are in position for a sweep.
Unlike Games 1 and 2 of this series, which the Dodgers dominated outside of a brief ninth-inning scare in the opener, Thursday’s contest was much of a jump ball.
The Dodgers scored first, thanks to a questionable tactical move from the Brewers — who used the left-handed Ashby as an opener, forcing him to face the top of the Dodgers’ order for the third time in this series.
The familiarity backfired. Shohei Ohtani hooked a leadoff triple into the right-field corner, snapping his season-long seven-game drought without an extra-base hit. Mookie Betts drove him in on the next pitch, belting a double into the right-center field gap.
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Only once Misiorowski entered did the Brewers settle down.
Four months after dismantling the Dodgers in a six-inning, one-run, 12-strikeout gem, one that helped him earn a surprise (and controversial) All-Star selection just five starts into his MLB career, the long-limbed, flame-throwing right-hander was similarly stout for most of his bulk-relief outing Thursday.
He stranded the two runners he inherited in the first with back-to-back strikeouts. He worked around an infield single from Andy Pages in the second. Then, he didn’t let another runner reach base until the sixth, racking up nine strikeouts along the way.
Glasnow, however, found equal success.
In a three-hit, three-walk, eight-strikeout start, he gave up his only damage in the second inning, when Caleb Durbin tripled (with the help of an over-aggressive dive from Kiké Hernández in left field) and scored on Jake Bauers’ RBI single.
But later in the inning, Glasnow got some help from his defense, with third baseman Max Muncy making a diving stop and a spinning throw from a drawn-in position to get Bauers (who had advanced to third on a steal and errant pickoff throw from Glasnow) at the plate.
And from there, Glasnow was untouchable, retiring 14 of his next 15 batters before his day ended on a two-out walk in the sixth.
Glasnow’s start kept the Dodgers’ rotation ERA in this postseason at an immaculate 1.54. The group also now has 71 strikeouts in 58 ⅓ innings over its nine combined starts.
That strength has been enough to give the Dodgers control of this series.
But the usually pesky Brewers haven’t helped their cause, either.
The clearly fading Misiorowski wasn’t removed until the Dodgers had already gone in front in the sixth. Uribe’s pickoff throw later in the inning was also puzzling, given that he hadn’t allowed a steal since 2023 and had successfully picked off a runner only once in that time. And during their one opportunity to rally in the seventh, when Durbin hit a leadoff double, manager Pat Murphy left Jake Bauers in the game for a left-on-left matchup against Vesia — leading to a harmless fly ball and the first of nine consecutive Brewers outs that would end the game.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
