EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsMILWAUKEE -- The Milwaukee Brewers dissected the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday. The Brewers stared down the greatest postseason pitcher of this generation like a lineup of Medusas, and he turned to stone. Every time the Dodgers scored, the Brewers answered with a run of their own. Milwaukee's bullpen razed whatever hope Los Angeles had left. And the Dodgers, who have spent the past three years tormenting every team that stepped to them, winning two championships in the process, now limp back to Los Angeles with their season on life support.For anyone who has been watching the Brewers, this isn't exactly a huge surprise. They are a very, very good baseball team, and the 7-4 victory that staked Milwaukee a 2-0 advantage in the National League Championship Series was the latest piece of evidence in a season full of it. They have, in fact, been among the game's best teams for upward of a decade now -- but this year, inside the clubhouse, throughout the organization and to a hot crowd of 42,516 at American Family Field, starved for their first World Series title in 58 years of existence, something feels different."Quite frankly, I think we're just tired of losing in the playoffs," said right-hander Brandon Woodruff, the longest-tenured Brewer. Now 33, Woodruff has seen every incarnation of these Brewers, from the 2018 crew that lost to the Dodgers in Game 7 of the NLCS to last year's version that Los Angeles swept away in four games. And from his current perch, on the injured list and acutely tuned in to every pitch, the growth of the Brewers from bullied to bullies was no accident.Since manager Pat Murphy took charge in November 2023 following Craig Counsell's defection to the rival Chicago Cubs, he has uttered a simple, straightforward mantra that the players have dutifully embraced: "Win tonight." There's a sign on the roof of the tunnel leading into the Brewers' dugout that says it, and other reminders abound."It starts there," Woodruff said. "It starts with his mentality. That man loves to win."Murphy's desire to win can manifest in old-school ways. He is the rare major league manager who will still not hesitate to bench a player for lack of effort or a mental mishap. He works himself into a tizzy over little mistakes, joking that he would trade his challenges for the ability to tase players who fall short of the Brewers' mission: a clean, fundamentally sound style of baseball.His team is a throwback. The players don't hit many home runs; they do pretty much everything else. Milwaukee won a major-league-best 103 games this season, three more than the Dodgers, and yet entered this series as underdogs despite holding home-field advantage. That was fine with the Brewers. They are perfectly content winning ball games in their own style."I don't want to sound weird when I say this," said infielder David Hamilton, who joined the Brewers in February and scored three runs in Game 2, "but it kind of feels like college baseball. Bunt 'em over, move 'em, sac fly, get 'em in. Any way to get a run on the board is a good thing. Just playing small ball, doing little things right, having longer at-bats. That's what makes us us."The Brewers were decidedly themselves in the first two games of the series. Game 1 saw them outlast Tarik Skubal, who had won the past two American League Cy Young Awards before joining the Dodgers in a trade deadline deal. Game 2 was even more impressive. Los Angeles punched a first-inning run across without a hit. Milwaukee answered with a run. The Dodgers retook the lead with another run in the third. Milwaukee answered with a marvelous half-inning of baseball.Hamilton singled and stole second. Between a Jackson Chourio lineout and an eight-pitch William Contreras fly out, Brice Turang walked. Up stepped Jake Bauers, one of a handful of reclamation projects on the Brewers. At 31 years old, in his first season of full-time at-bats, Bauers fell one point short of leading the NL in on-base percentage thanks to an eye at the plate that at times seems laser calibrated. When he waltzed into the batter's box, Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto -- the hero of last year's World Series and Kryptonite to any hitter with the intentions of playing postseason Superman -- awaited.Up to that point, Yamamoto wasn't particularly sharp. But he was still Yamamoto, with six distinct pitches he's willing to throw at any juncture and the moxie to escape such jams. Bauers welcomed the challenge. When Yamamoto dropped in a curveball to even the count at 2-2, Bauers went into protect mode. He spit on a splitter to take the count full and proceeded to foul off the next six pitches: a high-and-inside fastball, low-and-inside curveball, top-rail sinker, up-and-in four-seamer, up-and-in cutter and down-and-away splitter. When Yamamoto spiked the 12th pitch of the plate appearance, Bauers unleashed a slight bat flip and trotted to first to load the bases.It was just a walk, yes. It felt like more."I've had a couple, like, 16-pitch ABs, and it's almost a helpless feeling," Woodruff said. "I don't know what to throw. It takes a lot out of you. And I think that at-bat right there did it. The way Yamamoto pitches -- it's truly like an artist. He can go every quadrant, he knows when to slow you down, and he can throw everything for a strike. That's what makes him so difficult. So we just had a good plan and wore him down, and that at-bat right there that Bauers put up -- that let us know that we can get on him."Christian Yelich, the Brewers' captain, got on Yamamoto next, lacing a two-run single up the middle two pitches later, and it chased him after 75 pitches over 2 innings. Of all the unlikely outcomes on Monday, Yamamoto being forced from the game for ineffectiveness and inefficiency neared the top of the list. It didn't exactly open the floodgates -- Los Angeles stole the lead back with a two-run fifth -- but it laid the foundation for Milwaukee to approach Los Angeles' bullpen with the confidence of a team that booked 42 come-from-behind wins this season.Certainly it helps to have a bullpen like the Brewers'. After they tied the game on a monster home run by Contreras in the fifth and took the lead an inning later when Contreras followed an intentional walk to Turang with a run-scoring single to left field, Milwaukee rode its relief corps to ensure there will be more baseball in Cream City this year. Brewers relievers retired the last 15 hitters they faced, lowering their ERA this postseason to 0.31 -- one run in 28 23 innings, with only 13 hits allowed."You know who you're going to have to play and what series you're going to have to be in," Yelich said. "We've been a confident group all year, knowing when we play our game and we do things right, we're a really hard team to beat."Milwaukee didn't do everything right Monday. Starter Logan Henderson threw two balls away, leaving Murphy with an itchy taser finger. But, as the Brewers so often do, they shook off the ugliness, locked in and did to the Dodgers what the Dodgers have made it a habit of doing to the rest of MLB."We're definitely better equipped," Brewers infielder Joey Ortiz said. "Every team I've been a part of here had the competitiveness factor and the want to win, of course. But this year it just seems like we had a never-die mentality. If we've got one out left to go, it just seems like we got a shot."By the time there was one out left to go, the Brewers were in the sort of position they always try to find themselves: winning tonight. But that was just one night. They know how baseball works. They remember that the Dodgers trailed Atlanta, 2-0, in the 2020 NLCS and clawed back to take the series and win a championship. They do not take anything for granted -- not how bad Shohei Ohtani looks, not how the rest of the Dodgers' lineup seems as if it's swinging papier-mache bats, not anything until four wins are secured and Game 1 of the World Series is set for Oct. 23 in Milwaukee.They do, however, appreciate what they've done in the past two days. The Dodgers are professional will-imposers. Opponents play their game on their terms. Some of it is their overwhelming talent, some of it their undeniable aura. But so far, they've been the ones overwhelmed. They've been the ones subjected to a different type of aura.It can sneak up on you -- the long at-bats, the aggressiveness on the basepaths, everything the Milwaukee Brewers do to speed up the game and make you adjust. Most teams can't match it. And unless something changes, the Los Angeles Dodgers will become the latest to face Brewer ball and crumble at the feet of its excellence.
