The book on beating the Los Angeles Dodgers always comes back to their bullpen. That pen owned a middle-of-the-pack 4.27 earned run average in the regular season and a 5.91 postseason ERA. If you can get to it, you’ve found the soft underbelly of baseball’s most fearsome beast. You’re genuinely in with a chance to slay the dragon.
But here’s the problem after two games in the National League Championship Series. The Brewers have faced that Dodgers bullpen for a grand total of three outs. Because the dragon’s starting pitchers are burning the Brewers to a crisp.
In Game 1, all Blake Snell did was imitate Don Larsen for one of the greatest postseason pitching performances since 1956. He faced the minimum number of Brewers through eight innings – the first time anyone has done so since Larsen threw his legendary perfect game – and struck out 10.
In Game 2, Jackson Chourio’s first-pitch home run for the Brewers hinted at better things to come against Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Then Yamamoto became just the fourth player in postseason baseball history to throw a complete game after allowing a leadoff home run.
The smoldering result: After being on the wrong end of such historical pitching performances, the Brewers must make some history themselves if they’re to survive to their first World Series since 1982. Only 15 teams have lost the first two games of a best-of-seven series and come back to win it.
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Making the task more daunting is that none of those teams had to face a starting rotation that was so talented, or at least so well-compensated for their work. The Dodgers starter foursome of Snell, Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani and Tyler Glasnow have combined salaries of more than $107 million. That’s about $15 million shy of the entire Brewers payroll, not to mention $23 million more than the gross national income of the country of Tuvalu.
They’re paid so well because they pitch so well. And, of course, because the Dodgers can afford it. But for those Brewers fans seeking a bit of hope, despite what’s happened in these first two games, neither money nor talent equates to unbeatable.
When the Brewers won all six of their regular-season games against the Dodgers, those victories included one game started by Yamamoto and two started by Glasnow, who happens to be LA’s starter for Game 3.
Besides, it’s not like the Brewers are strangers to being underdogs. It’s exactly the role that has defined their success all season, and perhaps even fueled it. Brewers manager Pat Murphy certainly thinks so.
“The one thing is, you guys might have us counted out. And I understand that,” he said after the Game 2 loss. “Ninety percent of the teams that have been in this situation don’t win the series. But this team has been counted out a lot this year. And I think there’s some fight left in them.
“It will be a little tougher path doing it on the road,” Murphy continued, “but we swept the Dodgers earlier in the year on the road. So at least there’s some capability. I know the Dodgers weren’t the same team then. But 10 times this year we’ve won four in a row, so that’s also a possibility. I still like our team.”
The old British line, made famous by Ted Lasso, is that it’s the hope that kills you. And Lasso fans no doubt recall how he turned the line on its head.
The Brewers surely need hope and belief. But they really don’t need a miracle. They just need to win some baseball games as an underdog. And that, they’ve been doing all season.
