MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers have spent $163 million on the back end of their bullpen over the past two years. The Milwaukee Brewers did not.
So, two games into the National League Championship Series, guess which team’s relief corps was turned off and which was lit up? (Spoiler alert: It’s not the team that has all the money.)
Milwaukee sent a parade of four relievers to the mound for a second straight game Monday, and for a second straight game they didn’t allow a run, retiring the bottom 15 Dodgers in order in a 7-4 victory that gives Milwaukee a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, which moves to Dodger Stadium for Game 3 on Wednesday.
The Brewers bullpen pitched 9 2/3 innings in the Series, producing just two hits – both against Abner Uribe – and three walks. That’s it. Both wins went to relievers, DL Hall in game one and JoJo Romero in game two.
The Dodgers relievers, meanwhile, threw 9 1/3 innings over the two games, allowing four runs on nine hits. Reliever Brock Stewart suffered the loss Monday.
In a series that is quickly shaping up to be a battle between the relievers, the Dodgers are clearly not getting what they paid for.
“I don’t have an answer,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shrugged when asked why the Dodgers relievers struggled while the Brewers shined. “I know they have good weapons; so do we. I think they just find ways to gain ground better than us.”
Slugger Max Muncy has a theory on the same question.
“They’re really good,” he said.
The Brewers’ 48 bullpen wins were the most in baseball during the regular season and their 3.40 ERA was the best in the National League. And it was even better in the postseason, allowing just one earned run in 28 2/3 innings against the Dodgers and San Diego Padres. In the division era (since 1969), only the 1991 Minnesota Twins have a lower bullpen ERA through six postseason games and with a reliever getting the win in all five of Milwaukee’s postseason victories, the Brewers have done something only the 2014 Kansas City Royals had done before.
“There’s a reason they’re where they are right now and the bullpen is a big part of it,” Muncy said. “If there’s a positive, you could say a lot of our guys are starting to look at each other’s backs. But when they’re as good as they are, I don’t know how much that helps.
“They all throw over 100 (mph) and they all have some really nasty stuff.”
Especially Aaron Ashby, who pitched in both games, holding the Dodgers to a walk in 3 2/3 innings, striking out three. He is the Brewers’ highest-paid reliever, earning $5.5 million this season.
The Dodgers have three relievers who are at least double that — and one of them, Blake Treinen, didn’t even make the postseason roster. One of the others, Tanner Scott, allowed twice as many runs in his first postseason appearance as the Brewers bullpen gave up this month.
Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Abner Uribe celebrates after finishing the seventh inning of Game 2 of the NLCS.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“They attack hitters,” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández said of Milwaukee’s relievers. “They throw strikes. They have good stuff. They throw hard. We just have to do a better job.”
Hernández then echoed Muncy in pointing out that the Dodgers have now seen six of Milwaukee’s nine relievers, with Ashby and Uribe pitching in both games. And even though the Dodgers haven’t done anything against them yet, that familiarity could help moving forward.
“We know what we’re going to get,” Hernández said.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy conceded that point – sort of.
“Familiarity, as the numbers tell us, is an advantage,” he said. “So what we’re trying to do is make sure they’re not going to face the same guys the next time they pitch if they only play one inning.
“I can’t always do this.”
But sometimes it is possible. Uribe, who appeared in all six of the Brewers’ postseason games, has already faced eight Dodger hitters in the series, but only one of them, Andy Pages, twice. And when he faces someone a second time, Murphy said with a smile, who’s to say he’ll throw them the same way?
“Uribe may have something in store depending on how those other moments went,” he said. “Well, I never gave him that. »
That would count as a surprise. However, the dominant performance from the Brewers bullpen would not be it. Because even in baseball, the Dodgers are discovering that there are some things money can’t buy.
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