The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-1 on Sunday night in the opener of the National League Championship Series, a rematch a year in the making.
The moment that decided it
Rookie Luis Lara stung a first-pitch changeup from Tarik Skubal up the middle to score Garrett Mitchell. Mitchell had drawn a leadoff walk and moved to second on a Cooper Pratt sacrifice bunt. Milwaukee took a fifth-inning lead on a manufactured run and held it for the rest of the game, which captured the team’s march to the NLCS. It also showed that these are not the same Brewers who were swept by the Dodgers last year.
Star of the game: the bullpen
Milwaukee’s bullpen was the difference. DL Hall, Abner Uribe, Aaron Ashby and Trevor Megill combined for 4⅔ scoreless innings and escaped several difficult situations with composure. Ashby deserves special credit. He covered two innings and induced a pair of infield popups in the eighth, one from Freddie Freeman and one from Shohei Ohtani.
The stat that defined the game
Milwaukee turned three double plays. Jacob Misiorowski had problems early, but the Brewers’ defence bailed him out with 6-4-3 double plays to end the first and second innings. After Misiorowski left in the fifth, Hall induced another inning-ending double play to snuff out a potential rally.
What it means for the series
This is only the second time since the Dodgers’ championship run began in 2024 that they have lost the opening game of a playoff series. The first was in last year’s World Series, when they bounced back to beat the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound. Yamamoto starts Game 2 on Monday at 5 p.m. ET, and the Dodgers know that falling 2-0 behind a team as strong as the Brewers could cause serious problems.
Other key moments
Skubal struck out six through the first three innings. Misiorowski showed off a 102 mph fastball. Uribe struck out a batter with runners on to keep Milwaukee ahead. Brice Turang’s hit tied the game before Lara’s go-ahead run put the Brewers back in front.
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