MILWAUKEE –– The Dodgers did almost everything right early on Sunday night.
Key word: Almost.
In Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, in a marquee pitching matchup between a reigning two-time Cy Young Award winner and this year’s presumptive recipient of such hardware, the Dodgers came in with a clear game plan against the Milwaukee Brewers and their young stud ace, Jacob Misiorowski.
They wanted to stress Misiorowski’s pitch count by working tough, long at-bats. They wanted to shorten their swing against his 105 mph fastball and hit balls the other way. They wanted to get him out of the game quickly and let their own ace, Tarik Skubal, pitch with a lead.
“Try to make him earn,” infielder Kiké Hernández said. “Make him grind it out.”
On almost all accounts, they were successful.
There was just one problem.
“We didn’t score enough,” Hernández sighed.
Indeed, in a 2-1 loss at American Family Field that put the Brewers in front to open this best-of-seven series, the Dodgers wasted chance after chance against Misiorowski and the Brewers’ stout bullpen, hitting into three double-plays, stranding nine men on base, and squandering an early lead en route to a Game 1 defeat.
“We lost,” shortstop Mookie Betts said. “So it didn’t really work.”
It almost did, of course, with the Dodgers putting together the kind of quality at-bats that have become a trademark of their October offense.
Misiorowski needed 94 pitches to get through only 4 ⅓ innings. He gave up five hits, four of them to the opposite field. He topped out at 104 mph with his fastball, yet got the Dodgers to whiff on only five of their 27 swings against it.
“I thought our approach was really great,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said.
However, after an RBI single from Andy Pages in the second inning, the team wouldn’t score again.
Instead, the Brewers rallied in front of a raucous home crowd, tying the score on Brice Turang’s solo home run in the fourth before taking the lead on an RBI single from Luis Lara in the fifth.
Those were the only real mistakes Skubal made in his five-inning, seven-strikeout outing. But in a game that saw the two bullpens combine for 7 ⅔ scoreless frames –– a potential preview of things to come this series –– that would be two too many to prevent a Game 1 defeat.
“It’s gonna be a good series,” Kiké Hernández said. “For us, it’s a matter of turning the page and coming back being ready to play tomorrow.”
Granted, Sunday’s opener was always more important for the Brewers –– who were trying to protect home-field advantage, and needed to capitalize on Misiorowski’s start given the lack of star power in their rotation behind him.
Still, the result will sting for the Dodgers, after they seemingly had the game where they wanted it early, only to cede control with their costly string of missed opportunities.
The Dodgers spent Saturday’s off-day workout prepping for Misiorowski’s unprecedented fastball velocity, using a drill Albert Pujols introduced to the team in 2021 –– in which they took swings against a velocity machine from several steps in front of home plate –– to calibrate their approach against his triple-digit heat.
From the start, the strategy paid off. Just like against Braves ace Chris Sale in the NL Division Series, the Dodgers extended at-bats and created stress repeatedly.
In the first, Freeman singled on a line drive the other way, though that was negated by a Will Smith inning-ending double-play (extending what is now a 1-for-19 postseason drought for him).
In the second, a four-pitch leadoff walk from Shohei Ohtani was followed by more opposite-field singles from Teoscar Hernández and Pages –– the latter opening the scoring and continuing his recent turnaround this postseason.
In the next at-bat, Kyle Tucker continued the grind, battling his way to a 10-pitch walk that kept the rally going.
Suddenly, with the bases loaded and Misiorowski nearing 40 pitches in the second inning alone, it appeared the Dodgers were on the verge of a knockout blow.
They would regret not making it come to fruition.
Instead, Kiké Hernández bounced into another double-play that allowed Misiorowski to escape the danger, representing a turning point that even Hernández felt “changed the game.”
Misiorowski’s pitch count continued to climb in the third (when Betts hit a leadoff single) and the fourth (when Teoscar Hernández hit a leadoff single, then was gifted second on a controversial balk call that negated a pick-off), but the Dodgers again failed to add to the lead.
In the fifth, he was finally chased from the mound afrer a one-out walk from Betts. But even then, Freeman hit into yet another double-play four pitches later against reliever DL Hall.
In case you had forgotten, the Dodgers hit into more double-plays (128) than any other NL team in the regular season.
“I don’t think it was anything about frustration,” Teoscar Hernández said. “It’s just, we need to be better with guys in scoring position.”
On Sunday, the trend would quickly prove costly.
After three dominant innings to start the game from Skubal –– who struck out six of his first nine batters, including three on three pitches –– Brice Turang stayed inside a tailing 2-0 sinker to leadoff the fourth and deposited it in the Brewers’ left-field bullpen.
The solo blast tied the game. It awoke a sold-out, yellow-towel-waving crowd at American Family Field. And it set the stage for the Brewers to take the lead in the bottom of the fifth.
All around Milwaukee’s home ballpark, signs have displayed the club’s slogan for this October: “Win Our Way.”
In the fifth, the Brewers showed what that meant.
Epitomizing their style of so-called Brewer Ball, the club’s small-ball offense put its identity on display. Garrett Mitchell drew a leadoff walk. Cooper Pratt bunted him to second. Then, with a short swing on a hanging first-pitch changeup, Luis Lara bounced an RBI single back up the middle.
It was something out of seemingly nothing –– a reminder of how the Brewers, with their bottom-10 payroll of $123 million, ranked second in the majors in scoring this year (despite hitting the second-fewest number of home runs).
“They’re a good baseball team,” Skubal said. “They do that type of stuff.”
The Brewers almost broke the game open after that, later loading the bases with two outs while inflicting their own damage on Skubal’s pitch count. And though Skubal would get out of it, he wouldn’t return for the sixth, removed after 80 throws in the shortest start of his postseason career.
Four Brewers relievers, meanwhile, would make the 2-1 lead stand up, stranding more runners in the sixth (when Pages struck out against Abner Uribe with runners on the corners), the eighth (after Smith drew a walk) and once again in the ninth (when closer Trevor Megill walked two batters with the bases loaded, including pinch-hitting rookie sensation Josue De Paula, before finally ending the game on a flyout from Betts).
So often, they almost seemed to get to the Brewers.
But in the end, it was Milwaukee that executed its game plan more clinically, drawing first blood in an NLCS rematch that already looks nothing like last year’s Dodgers sweep.
“You can’t go into a long series against a team that has the best record in baseball and expect to just win four,” Roberts said. “It’s going to be a long series. We knew it coming in. We had our chances, but they made plays, pitches when they needed to. We’ve just got to reset.”
