LOS ANGELES — The pressure the Dodgers place on opponents is relentless. The force they exert is difficult to overcome. For those reasons, Los Angeles is one win away from returning to the World Series.
For much of National League Championship Series Game 3 at Dodger Stadium, Brewers rookie Jacob Misiorowski made it a fair fight. He struck out nine. His pitches exploded into the strike zone and darted out of it. But the Dodgers didn’t blink, eventually cracking Misiorowski in the sixth inning and going on to win, 3-1.
The Dodgers now need just one more victory to advance to the World Series, where they would defend their championship against either the Mariners or Blue Jays. At this point, history very much favors their quest to make it there. Teams taking a 3-0 lead in any best-of-seven postseason series have gone on to win it a staggering 40 of 41 times (97.6%), including 31 sweeps. Quite famously, the only team to come all the way back after losing Games 1-3 was the Red Sox against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.
That’s the challenge the Brewers now face, despite showing as much spunk at points of Game 3 as they have this entire series. After three of the first four Dodgers batters reached base against opener Aaron Ashby — including Shohei Ohtani, who tripled, and Mookie Betts, who doubled Ohtani home — Brewers manager Pat Murphy replaced Ashby with Misiorowski. The dividends were immediate; Misiorowski struck out the first two batters he faced to strand a pair on base, and he retired 15 of his first 16 batters.
But the Dodgers remained their unrelenting selves, finally breaking through on a single, a walk and a Tommy Edman go-ahead RBI single in the sixth. Two batters later, reliever Abner Uribe threw away a pickoff attempt to plate another run.
The Brewers never recovered. Despite pressuring Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow early, scoring a run against him in the second inning and knocking him out of the game in the sixth, Milwaukee could not muster any additional offense. The Dodgers have limited their opponent to a single run in each of the first three NLCS games.
“This whole postseason, a lot of guys have stepped up,” Glasnow said when asked about the performance of Los Angeles’ relievers, who combined to allow just one hit and no walks over the final 3 1/3 innings. “Incredible just to sit and relax and have a lot of confidence in them. You feel pretty comfortable when anyone in our bullpen is out there.”
The Brewers will look to do more damage in Game 4 on Friday, with Jose Quintana likely to pitch bulk innings opposite Ohtani. But they face a significant challenge just to force the series back to Milwaukee, let alone to come from behind and win it. Adding to Milwaukee’s troubles, star outfielder Jackson Chourio was forced to exit Game 3 in the seventh inning with what appeared to be a recurrence of a right hamstring injury.
In seven previous instances of a team taking a 3-0 series lead in a best-of-seven set vs. an opponent with MLB’s best regular-season record, the series ended in a sweep all seven times.
Staving off a similar fate may prove even tougher for Milwaukee if Ohtani’s leadoff triple is a sign his postseason slump might be nearing an end.
“It was huge,” Betts said of Ohtani’s hit. “It’s kind of like the Bulls playing without Michael Jordan sometimes. So we get him going, and then it’s really going to be hard to beat.”
