But then the Brewers, as they always seem to, fought back and very nearly tied the game (or even walked off). Ultimately, though, they fell just short in a 2-1 Dodgers victory. This matchup pits the defending World Series champions against the team with the best record in baseball this year. You get a sense they’re all gonna be like this.
Throughout this postseason, I’ll be previewing the next day’s action, game by game. Here are three storylines to watch for in NLCS Game 2 on Tuesday night.
Will the Brewers’ bats have better luck against Yamamoto?
The Brewers are not known for having an overpowering offense, but it felt like you could put the best hitters in the history of the sport out there against Blake Snell on Monday night and they still would have gotten shut out. TBS analyst Ron Darling said, “a 3-2 count is a rally” against Snell, and that was exactly correct. The Brewers might have had an equal chance to score had they not taken their bats to the plate with them. (They only got the ball out of the infield against Snell three times!)
Mercifully for the Brewers, Snell won’t be able to pitch again until Game 5. Not so mercifully, the Dodgers’ Game 2 starter is a guy who had a 2.49 ERA and the lowest hits-per-nine-innings rate in the Majors during the regular season. So it may not get that much easier, although anything would be easier than facing Snell was in Game 1.
The Brewers had the second-best offense on a rate basis in the Division Series round, slashing .250/.328/.425, with 22 runs scored in five games. But the Cubs didn’t have a starting pitcher like Snell, and they didn’t have one like Yamamoto, either. With that said, the Brewers knocked Yamamoto out in the first inning of his July 7 start in Milwaukee, thanks in part to Andrew Vaughn launching a three-run homer in his first Brewers plate appearance. That should give this offense some confidence that it can rebound in Game 2.
Can Roki Sasaki bounce back?
One of the reasons the Dodgers have been relying on their rotation so much this postseason is because the middle of their bullpen has had a soft underbelly all year, and definitely during these playoffs. Basically, the Dodgers trust their four starters, starter-turned-closer Roki Sasaki and … that’s pretty much it. That has generally worked out, largely because Sasaki has been so incredible: Coming into Monday, he had thrown 5 1/3 postseason innings over four appearances and given up just one baserunner.
But Sasaki was a mess in Game 1, walking two hitters and giving up a ringing double to Jake Bauers before being pulled for Blake Treinen. The veteran right-hander had some shaky moments himself before striking out Brice Turang with a 2-2 count and the bases loaded. Treinen was nails for the Dodgers last year but has been anything but trustworthy in 2025, both in the regular season and in the playoffs.
That Dave Roberts went to Treinen anyway spoke to how off Sasaki suddenly seemed to be. The whole structure of the Dodgers pitching staff, considering how concerning the rest of the bullpen’s performance has been, is built around Sasaki being the guy who can close games out. Sasaki had appeared invincible. He sure didn’t look invincible on Monday, and now you have to wonder where Roberts will turn the next time around.
Is everybody’s head still spinning from THAT play?
There was no way I was going to write about this series without talking about that absolutely bonkers double play, even if Game 2 is an entirely new game and if that play somehow happened again, I’m pretty sure the universe would fold back in upon itself and we’d all get sucked into a black hole. (Forgive me, I’m a little hazy on the astrophysics.)
The unsung hero of that play, to my eyes, was left-field umpire Chad Fairchild, who (unlike me and, I suspect, millions of people watching at home) saw that the ball bounced off the wall after it hit center fielder Sal Frelick’s glove. Can you imagine if he hadn’t? If he would have called the batter, Max Muncy, out? A play that was already infinitely confusing would have devolved into absolute chaos. It’s possible that managers Pat Murphy and Dave Roberts would still be out there trying to sort it out.
That Brewers catcher William Contreras knew exactly what to do in jogging over to tag third base has been perceived as some kind of cosmic good fortune, but it wasn’t. People have been asking all season how the Brewers are doing this, how they have the best record in baseball, how they always seem to be more than the sum of their parts. Well, this is how: They do the little things, they make the right plays, they have all the edges around the margins. They don’t have Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman or Blake Snell. But they have stuff like that. They will continue to need it.
