The Milwaukee Brewers will appear in the World Series for the second time in franchise history and for the first time as a National League team (the Brewers were still in the American League when they went to the World Series in 1982). It also means the Los Angeles Dodgers were eliminated and their chance to become baseball’s first three-time champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees ended Thursday night. The Brewers swept the Dodgers in four games in the NLCS, a year after the Dodgers swept them in the 2025 NLCS.
Who is responsible for the Dodgers reaching four runs in the NLCS? There’s a lot of blame to go around, so let’s attribute it, shall we?
1. The brewers
Milwaukee continues to be the best team in baseball
We have to start here. The Dodgers were swept in the NLCS because the Brewers dominated them in every phase of the game. The Brewers got better starting. Their bullpen was better. Their defense and baserunning were better. Their offense was better both at stringing together hits to build a rally and at throwing the ball out of the park. Pat Murphy also outsold Dave Roberts. You name it, and the Brewers have done it better than the Dodgers in this series.
“It’s a pretty simple answer,” Dodgers infielder Max Muncy said after Game 3. “We’re playing like crap. They’re playing really well.”
As much as we want to (and will) blame various Dodgers for the sweep, the main reason they were swept is because the Brewers were simply the better team. They were the better team in the regular season based on their records (103-59 vs. 100-62) and point differential (+214 vs. +201), and they certainly played like the best team in the NLCS. The best team doesn’t always win a playoff series. However, in the NLCS, the better team played like the better team, period.
2. Shohei Ohtani
MLB’s brightest star was greatly dimmed…even with the Game 4 homer
The biggest star on baseball’s most star-rich team wasn’t himself in the final two months of the season. Shohei Ohtani played through knee and bicep injuries and had been so unproductive that Roberts said there would be at least a “conversation” about Ohtani’s sitting position in Game 3. That didn’t happen, and hey, Ohtani went 1-for-2 with a walk and a hit-by-run in Game 3, and hit a home run in Game 4. The homer gave the United States a 4-0 lead. Dodgers Thursday. The Dodgers didn’t score again. Ultimately, Ohtani wasn’t a factor until it was too late. It’s difficult to win when your best player is so diminished.
Every time a team loses in the playoffs, the best player gets disproportionately blamed, and that applies to Ohtani in this series. He is clearly not in good health, but he insists on staying in alignmentand he had several chances in the first three games to tip the scales in his team’s favor, but he couldn’t do it. When the best player underperforms, he bears most of the blame. This is how the world has evolved since the dawn of team sports.
3. Freddie Freeman
Normally clutch, Freeman was the worst player in the series
Freddie Freeman, not Ohtani, was the worst player in the NLCS in terms of win probability added and championship probability added. He went 1 for 14 in the series and the only hit came in the first inning of Game 1. Freeman went 0 for 13 after his first NLCS at-bat and that 0 for 13 includes:
- Out after Mookie Betts drew a leadoff walk in the third inning of Game 1.
- Establishing himself into an inning-ending double play in the fifth inning of the first game.
- Getting to second on the first pitch to open the eighth inning of the first game.
- Flying away with runners on first and second and no outs in the third inning of Game 2.
- Flying away with runners on first and second and one out in the third inning of Game 3.
- Groundout with a runner on first and two outs in the fifth inning of Game 3.
That’s an awful lot of empty hitters in clutch situations for one of the best clutch hitters of this generation. Freeman had as many double plays as total bases (one each) in the NLCS, and his only RBI came on a sacrifice fly. You won’t beat a team as good as the Brewers with sac flies. You need bigger swings from your best players and Freeman didn’t provide them.
4. The supporting cast
Only two Dodgers hitters had consistently strong at-bats in the NLCS
Max Muncy went 2 for 12 with six strikeouts in the NLCS. Teoscar Hernández went 3 for 14. Andy Pages went 3 for 12. Tommy Edman went 1 for 7. Will Smith went 2 for 15 in the NLCS. Playoff legend Enrique Hernández went 0 for 8 with a horrible strikeout in Game 3. The Dodgers had runners on second and third with one out in the sixth, and Hernández threw two pitches into the zone for strikes, then beat the slider out of the zone. This was perhaps the worst at-bat of this NLCS.
Freeman was terrible, Ohtani was terrible, and what has so often set the Dodgers apart in recent years – an elite supporting cast – was also terrible. Edman, Muncy, Smith and Hernández are a combined 11-for-58 (.189) in the four games. Betts (3 for 15 with three walks) and Kyle Tucker (4 for 12 with three walks) were the only Dodgers hitters to escape scrutiny. They were their most productive hitters and always had solid hitters. Everyone else? 😴😴😴
5. Dave Roberts
Roberts didn’t press the right buttons
The manager can’t swing the bat or throw the ball for his players, but he can put his team in the best position to succeed, and Roberts didn’t do that in the NLCS. The third game, in particular, was a managerial mess. Roberts burned the precocious Josue De Paula in the sixth inning when he sent him out to hit Miguel Rojas with runners on second and third and one out, then immediately hit Enrique Hernández for De Paula when the Brewers brought in a left-handed reliever.
De Paula is a rookie, I understand that, but he has a history of hitting lefties well in the minors. Specifically, he has a strong track record of making contact against lefties, which is something the Dodgers needed at that spot. A ball in play to go home. Instead, Roberts defaulted the veteran Hernández, who struck out weakly. Despite all of his career postseason success, Hernández was 1-for-14 in the postseason and a .190/.235/.317 batting line in his last 19 postseason games. Roberts never adjusted his priorities.
The NLCS was a throwback to Roberts from before 2024, when he too often showed too much faith in his veterans and had the unfortunate knack of sticking with starters too long. In 2024 and 2025, everything went well and Roberts looked like a genius. Those same mistakes, the ones he’s made over the past two years, have reared their ugly heads. The NLCS sweep is all about the players. Roberts didn’t play his cards right either. He made things worse.
Gn sports
