MILWAUKEE — What do six days in July say about what might be in store for the coming days in October?
As the Brewers prepare to take on the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, they hope those midsummer meetings say a lot. But they realize they probably don’t.
The Dodgers exceed the Brewers in star power and outspend the Brewers by the GDP of a developing nation, but Milwaukee owned the regular-season series, sweeping three-game sets that straddled the All-Star break while the club was in the midst of an 11-game winning streak.
That doesn’t happen very often. The Brewers had never before swept their season series against the Dodgers. And no team had swept a season series of five or more games against the Dodgers since the 2006 Cardinals (seven games). Before that, it hadn’t happened since the 1994 Braves (six games).
“It’s a bunch of guys nobody’s ever heard of,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said lovingly of his Crew.
It was July 20 at Dodger Stadium. Every player in the Brewers lineup had tallied a hit and the Dodgers committed three errors as Milwaukee made a comeback from an early 3-0 deficit for a 6-5 win. Murphy’s office was filled with reporters representing Japanese outlets who typically follow Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, but were enamored with the upstart Brewers, their gregarious manager and their 6-foot-7 rookie right-hander, Jacob Misiorowski.
“No disrespect to the great fans of Japan baseball,” Murphy told the room that day, “but they can’t name five guys in our lineup. And that’s just a credit to hungry, hungry players.”
Those players just gave the Brewers a chance to play for a trip to the World Series.
“We’re always the underdogs,” said longtime Brewers right-hander Brandon Woodruff, who missed the NLDS because of a lat injury and will miss the NLCS, too. “But winning this series against our division rival, first time we won a [playoff] series since 2018, we’ve got nothing to lose. We’re going to play free. I think getting over this hump is huge.”
Woodruff had just rejoined the Brewers when they met the Dodgers for six games in a 14-day span from July 7-20. To say it was a memorable stretch of Milwaukee’s season is an understatement.
The opener marked the arrival of Andrew Vaughn, the former first-round Draft pick who was stuck at Triple-A with the White Sox when right-hander Aaron Civale asked the Brewers for a trade in June. Milwaukee and Chicago agreed to a swap, Vaughn was called up on July 7 and promptly homered off Yamamoto to become the fifth player in the franchise’s 57-season history to hit a home run in his first plate appearance.
The next night, Jacob Misiorowski outdueled Clayton Kershaw and the Brewers won again. Misiorowski gave up a leadoff home run to Ohtani before staging a strikeout clinic, whiffing 12 of the next 16 hitters on the way to six commanding innings. Before that day, the last pitcher to record 12 strikeouts against the Dodgers was Ohtani, then with the Angels, on June 21, 2023.
To complete their first-ever series sweep of the Dodgers in Milwaukee, the Brewers needed a comeback on July 9. They got it, with Vaughn driving in the tying run in the ninth inning and Jackson Chourio delivering his first career walk-off hit in the ninth to deal the Dodgers a sixth straight loss.
“It was an incredible moment,” Chourio said. “I’m happy that we were able to finish the sweep off with that hit. It’s special. It’s a great group of guys here.”
What does all that mean now, with the teams set to meet again?
“It means nothing. It means absolutely nothing,” Woodruff said before thinking of one thing. “It tells us as a group that we can play with them, and we know we can. But it means nothing when it gets to this time of year. It’s going to be a battle.”
The Dodgers will be rested and ready. They have not announced any pitching plans, but one scenario has Blake Snell starting Game 1, followed by Shohei Ohtani, Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow in that order.
The Brewers have two starters at full strength in Priester and Peralta, who are lined up in that order for Games 1 and 2 unless Jose Quintana, just back from a right calf strain, figures in. Length options likely to play significant roles in getting through a seven-game series include Misiorowski and perhaps Robert Gasser, though he struggled in his lone NLDS appearance. Tobias Myers, who is healthy but didn’t make the NLDS roster, could be in play, as could rookie righty Logan Henderson, who has been throwing in Arizona as he comes back from an elbow injury.
“Our whole year has been about playing together,” Priester said. “They’re a great team. You look up and down the lineup at the MVPs and you can be like, ‘Holy cow, it’s the frickin’ Dodgers.’ Or you can look around and see the guys in our room, committed to each other and playing for each other. That’s what I choose to believe in.”
For players, the preparation begins with a workout on Sunday. For the front office, it’s already well underway.
“We’ve been working on it,” Arnold said. “You can’t just roll out of bed and be ready for the Dodgers, so we’ve been planning for all of the scenarios, and we’ll be ready.”
The first pitch of Game 1 is scheduled for 7:08 p.m. CT at American Family Field on Monday.
“We had to get through the Cubs and we have to get through the Dodgers to get where we want to get,” Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said. “And we’re up for it.”
