A dejected Matt Arnold, president of baseball operations for the Milwaukee Brewers, entered a Dodger Stadium elevator after Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS with an ashen face. It was like he had just watched a horror movie. And for the organization trying to get over a 43-year hump and its fan base, it was. As the Brewers were embarrassingly swept by the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, the reality that they hadn’t arrived yet set in.
A year later, the Brewers watched a different movie, a feel-good movie, unfold. This time, Milwaukee came out on top. Not only are the Brewers headed to the World Series for the first time since 1982, but they also got there by dominating the same Dodgers who were bogeymen last fall. In doing so, the Brewers ended MLB’s third-longest World Series appearance drought.
Advertisement
“The series leading up to the Dodgers game last year took a lot out of us. I think Murph talked about it a lot,” Arnold said of manager Pat Murphy last week. “Same thing with the Padres. That’s just part of the problem. So we’re going to have to be resilient here. I think this group is on another level higher than that. They’ve been through a lot.”
Taking down the Dodgers is an important chapter in Brewers history. Milwaukee is now the first team in MLB postseason history to sweep a team that swept them the previous year. And against the team that has struck fear into baseball’s opponents over the past two seasons, the Brewers showed that this iteration of their team isn’t easy to shake.
“I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me, watching the way they performed on the field after they swept us last year was a little eye-opening,” NLCS MVP Jake Bauers said after Game 4 on Thursday. “We won the NLDS against the Cubs (in 2025), and I think we kind of celebrated like it was something.
Advertisement
“Those guys swept us, they sent us home, and you would have thought it was a handshake line in a spring training game. It’s something that I had with me. It’s something that I remembered. Yeah, it was a little bit of motivation to just say, we’ve got to keep going until there’s no more games to play.”
That the Brewers beat the back-to-back World Series champions really shouldn’t be a surprise. While a sweep might not have been on anyone’s radar, this Brewers team showed for most of the season that they were one of the best in baseball. But the journey to end more than four decades of disappointment, failure and heartbreak did not begin in the last two years.
Milwaukee’s rise to the National League pennant has been slow and methodical over the past decade. In that time, the Brewers became a model of consistency. They have thus become one of the best organizations in baseball.
Advertisement
“A lot of people picked 82 wins, 83 wins, and I think we’re at 110 and counting,” Murphy said after the Brewers’ NLCS sweep. “It just shows you the group that’s in the room. They rallied around each other. They made the team.”
The Brewers have reached the playoffs in eight of the last nine seasons and have made three trips to the NLCS. They have averaged 94 wins over the last eight full seasons (excluding the shortened 2020 season) and have been the No. 1 seed in the playoffs in consecutive years. This trip to the Fall Classic was long overdue.
The first time the Dodgers faced the Brewers in the NLCS in 2018, the organization was completely different. They were led by David Stearns, now president of baseball operations for the New York Mets, and manager Craig Counsell, now with the rival Chicago Cubs. After Stearns left in 2022 and Counsell left in 2023, some thought Milwaukee’s streak of success might end.
Advertisement
History will show that this was just a blip on the franchise’s radar, as the partnership between Arnold and Murphy, both promoted following these departures, helped take the organization to another level.
In 2026, the Brewers finished the season ranked second in MLB in runs scored, but after finishing tied for 28th in home runs, many wondered if their offensive success could continue in the postseason. Well, in these playoffs, Milwaukee is leading all teams in home runs, slugging percentage and OPS, as well as average and on-base percentage, showing that its offense is as good as any.
“You can’t win this game by yourself,” second baseman Brice Turang said. “You have to trust your teammates to do that. And if it moves a guy, then you move him. And sometimes, trying to move him, you send a ball into space and you end up scoring him. So you end up doing yourself a favor. So I think when you play that way, good things happen.”
The Milwaukee Brewers 2026 story isn’t over yet, as they will host Games 1 and 2 of the Fall Classic next week in Milwaukee. But this team is not a Cinderella story. The Brewers are a National League giant that has been preparing for this success for some time.
Now four wins away from their ultimate goal with a roster among the youngest in the sport, this may just be the beginning.
Gn sports
