EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsLOS ANGELES -- Will Smith reached second base, yelled into the night sky and pumped his fists as Dodger Stadium began to shake in Wednesday's sixth inning. It seemed like the type of moment that had played out countless times in this ballpark over these last years: the Los Angeles Dodgers breaking through, momentum swinging in their direction, the opponent crumbling in its wake.Not in this series. Not against that team. Perhaps not this year.Like they did in the first two games of this National League Championship Series, the pesky, hungry, unrelenting Milwaukee Brewers absorbed the Dodgers' punch and hit back harder, turning a one-run deficit in the bottom of the sixth into a two-run lead in the top of the seventh, then rode their dominant bullpen the rest of the way. The result was a 6-2 victory that put the Dodgers in a 3-0 hole in this best-of-seven series and dealt them a sobering reality: In order to keep their hopes of becoming the first NL team to win three straight championships alive, they will have to make the type of comeback only one team has ever pulled off."At the beginning of this year, we set out to do something historic," Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said in the middle of a desolate home clubhouse. "It looks like we're going to have to make a little more history along the way if we want to accomplish that. That's the task ahead of us. We still have the pitching staff to be able to do it. We just have to get some hits."Those hits continue to be elusive.The Dodgers put the leadoff man on in three of their five innings against Brewers left-hander Robert Gasser and never scored. By the time the sixth inning arrived, they were batting .139 with men on base in the NLCS and had accumulated just two hits in 28 at-bats with runners in scoring position throughout the postseason. Smith, the Dodgers' struggling catcher, finally broke through against Abner Uribe shortly thereafter, scorching a double deep into the left-center-field gap to score two runs and give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead -- but the Brewers answered immediately.Andrew Vaughn led off the seventh with a walk against Blake Snell, who had retired 14 in a row and 18 of 20 since surrendering a first-pitch, leadoff home run to Jackson Chourio. Jake Bauers followed with an 11-pitch at-bat that ended in a two-run homer, two days after working a 12-pitch at-bat to draw a critical walk against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2. Garrett Mitchell followed with a home run of his own.Snell hadn't allowed a home run in 10 starts this season and ended up serving up three of them to a team that famously didn't hit enough of them. It marked only the second time in Snell's career that he had allowed two home runs to left-handed hitters in the same game, and he surrendered them in back-to-back fashion.Even more telling: For the fourth straight time, the Dodgers had taken the lead and the Brewers had followed by scoring in the next half-inning."To be able to win championships, you've got to win moments," Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas said. "We haven't been able to do that in this series, and they've been delivering on the moments."Dodgers manager Dave Roberts once again shuffled the lineup in hopes of sparking it to life, dropping Shohei Ohtani down to sixth -- the lowest he has hit in six years -- and moving Kyle Tucker into the cleanup spot. The Dodgers still managed only five hits and are now slashing .165/.264/.187 in this series, good for a .451 OPS. The Brewers' OPS, .831, is nearly double that."It's kind of a tough one to wrap your head around, especially with the talent that we have in this group and the way that we know we're capable of playing," Rojas said.Muncy put it more succinctly."We're playing like s---," he said when asked why the offense is struggling, "and they're playing great. It's as simple as that."And now, the task is simple: win four straight games, or the Dodgers' season, and in many ways their dynasty, is over.As Tucker noted, "This team's won four games before."Roberts had already looked. The Dodgers went on winning streaks of at least four games 10 times this season, he noted in his postgame news conference.Twenty-two years ago, Roberts came off the bench and stole the base that sparked the Boston Red Sox's epic comeback against the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series. They remain the only team -- out of 42 of them -- to overcome a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series.Roberts plans to address his players ahead of Thursday's Game 4 and talk about the task that awaits them, but he won't bring up that Red Sox team."I think they've seen the documentary," Roberts said. "They know it can happen."
