Dodgers make history with starting rotation and maintain 2-0 lead over Brewers
Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY Sports breaks down the Dodgers’ dominant rotation that helped the team grab a 2-0 lead over the Brewers in the NLCS.
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LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers have no idea what happened to Shohei Ohtani’s bat.
They don’t know who will be the closer tomorrow.
Freddie Freeman has been relatively restrained.
However, the Dodgers are one game away from returning to the World Series.
They beat the Milwaukee Brewers again, 3-1, and can complete a four-game sweep on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.
Simply put, this National League Championship Sayres was a complete mismatch.
Tyler Glasnow was the most recent Dodger starting pitcher to shut out the Brewers, allowing three hits and one run through 5 2/3 innings, and four relief pitchers allowed just one hit the rest of the game.
The Brewers now scored a total of three points.
He had only 9 hits.
They played 27 innings and were behind in 26 of them.
It’s true that the Brewers will be without their top hitters in the postseason.
No. 4 hitter Christian Yelich hit a scoring double in Game 1 of the 2018 NLCS against the Dodgers, but hasn’t hit an RBI in 25 postseason games since. He’s 2-for-12 since Thursday’s Game 2 game between the National League and the Chicago Cubs, with strikeouts in his last three at-bats.
Second baseman Bryce Turan has two hits in 23 at-bats and 11 strikeouts since Game 1 of the National League.
The only bright spot for the Brewers was once again their pitchers, especially rookie Jacob Misiorowski. He came on after Aaron Ashby gave up one run, was able to retire one batter in the first inning, and almost single-handedly kept the Brewers in the game.
He completely shut down the Dodgers’ offense over five innings, facing 15 batters, retiring 14 of them, and striking out eight.
The Miz was so dominant that only one player, Mookie Betts, had an infield hit until the sixth inning. And the only batter to get on base against Misiorowski was Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages, who hit an infield hit with two outs.
But the sixth inning came with fatigue. He allowed a one-out single to Will Smith. A full-count fastball walked Freddie Freeman, but Tommy Edman hit a tying single to center field to break the tie.
That was the end of Misiorowski’s afternoon play, and the Dodgers extended their lead to 3-1 on a throw error by Brewers relief pitcher Abner Uribe.
As if the Brewers weren’t already having enough trouble offensively, the team’s best player, Jackson Chourio, left midway through his at-bat with a right foot injury in the seventh inning, forcing him to drag himself up the dugout stairs to the clubhouse.
Ohtani, who had been absent since the Wild Card Series with a 2-for-25 slump, joined the Dodgers with at least one leadoff triple, making him the first Dodger to do a postseason leadoff triple since Davey Lopez in the 1977 World Series.
It was Ohtani’s first extra-base hit of the postseason, ending a seven-game slump that left him optimistic he would quickly return to being the most dangerous hitter in the game.
The Dodgers and Ohtani took the extreme step of getting out of his slump Wednesday by having him take extra batting practice on the field instead of his daily routine inside the cage. This is his first time taking batting practice on the field since joining the Dodgers. They even played Michael Bublé’s walk-up song “Feeling Good” over the speakers at Dodger Stadium.
“In other words, if I hit, we can win,” Ohtani said. “I think they think they can win if they hit. I want to do my best to aim for that.”
Ohtani denied that pitching in the postseason was a contributing factor to his struggles, but on the day he pitched in 2025, he hit just .222 with four home runs and 21 strikeouts, and the next day he hit .147 with two home runs and 10 strikeouts.
His slump began when he pitched six innings in Game 1 of the National League against the Philadelphia Phillies, going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts.
“I don’t know if there’s a direct correlation,” he says. “Physically, it doesn’t feel like there’s a connection.”
Still, the numbers are loud and clear.
“There’s definitely some frustration,” Roberts said. “Obviously he’s a very talented player and we have high expectations for him. He’s just a great competitor. He’s very prepared. And there’s still a lot left in baseball.”
The World Series begins in a week.
The Dodgers should be waiting there.
Follow Nightengale on X: @Bnightengale
Here’s how Game 3 played out.
Jackson Cholio appeared to injure his leg when he whiffed in the top of the seventh inning against Blake Treinen and was removed from the game.
Jacob Misiorowski was on a roll, allowing a single to Will Smith and then a walk to Freddie Freeman, putting Tommy Edman at bat with two outs and first base. Edman, last year’s NLCS MVP, singled to center field, bringing home Smith and giving the Dodgers a 2-1 lead.
Abner Uribe, who replaced Misiorowski, made a throwing error while trying to keep Edman in check with two outs, allowing Freeman to score the decisive point.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts retired starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow with two outs in the sixth inning after right-hander Andrew Vaughn gave up a walk. Letty Alex Beshear came on and struck out Sal Frelick to end the top of the 6th inning.
Glasnow finished the day with eight strikeouts, three walks, and allowed three hits and one run.
Game 3 of the NLCS remains tied into the 6th inning. Brewers rookie Jacob Misiorowski has pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings since taking the mound in the bottom of the first inning.
The right-handed pitcher has now given up 10 consecutive Dodgers and has eight strikeouts in relief so far.
Jacob Misiorowski replaced opening pitcher Andy Ashby and had five strikeouts in 2/3 innings, leaving the team tied 1-1 heading into the fourth inning.
Caleb Durbin hit a one-out triple off Tyler Glasnow in the top of the second inning, and the Dodgers infield pulled in and scored on Jake Bowers’ RBI home run, tying the game at 1-1.
Bowers is currently 4-for-9 with three RBIs in the 2025 postseason.
Bowers advanced on a steal of second and reached third base on an error by Glasnow, who was attempting to double, but third baseman Max Muncy made a great play to cut off Joey Ortiz’s grounder at the plate.
Shohei Ohtani took the lead in the bottom of the first inning with a triple to the right field corner off starter Aaron Ashby, and on his next pitch, Mookie Betts hit an RBI double to center field, giving Ohtani the lead.
Ashby, making his seventh appearance in eight postseason games for the Brewers, was replaced by Jacob Misiorowski with one out, and the rookie struck out Tommy Edman and Teoscar Hernandez and put out two runners.
Game 3 was being played at Dodger Stadium, and Los Angeles starter Tyler Glasnow was able to get around a two-out walk to William Contreras and an infield hit by Christian Yelich to keep the first inning to zero runs.
Glasnow was making his third postseason appearance after pitching 7 2/3 scoreless innings against the Phillies.
- Shohei Otani (L) DH
- Mookie Betts(R) SS
- Will Smith(R)C
- Freddie Freeman (left) 1B
- Tommy Edman(S) 2B
- Teoscar Hernandez (R) RF
- Max Muncy (L) 3B
- Enrique Hernandez (R) LF
- Andy Pages(R) CF
- Jackson Chorio(R) RF
- Bryce Turan (L) 2B
- William Contreras (R) C
- Christian Yelich (L) DH
- Andrew Vaughan (R) 1B
- Sal Frerick (left) CF
- Caleb Durbin(R) 3B
- Jake Bowers (left) LF
- Joey Ortiz (R) SS
Since the start of the National League vs. Phillies game, Shohei Ohtani has had just 2 hits in 25 at-bats (.080 average), and he unusually mixed up his routine, taking batting practice on the field at Dodger Stadium the day before Game 3.
“The postseason is like a street fight, it’s not like a boxing match, so there’s an urgency to it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And I think if this was a regular-season situation and you were looking at a small sample over a wide range of eight or nine games or whatever it was, I think he probably wouldn’t have been on the field.
“With the urgency of the postseason, he needed to make an adjustment and wanted to make an adjustment himself. And that adjustment started to show on the field. So I think that’s great in his understanding and appreciation of playing with urgency.”
Just 24 hours after Blake Snell became the first pitcher since Don Larsen’s perfect game in 1956 to face the fewest batters through eight innings in a postseason game, Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a home run on the first pitch of the game, but over the next 110 pitches he allowed just two hits, one walk and seven strikeouts. He was so dominant that he allowed just two fly balls and 15 ground balls the entire game.
“It was unbelievable,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said after Game 2. “This is probably the best two-game pitching streak I’ve ever seen.” — Bob Nightengale
