Crew overcomes 3 deficits in seesaw Game 2, tightens grip on NLCS

MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers and Dodgers spent the summer on a collision course. Two 100-plus win juggernauts. Only one National League pennant to go around.

Two games into their NLCS clash, the series has lived up to the billing -- and the two-time defending champs are on the ropes.

The Brewers rallied for yet another dramatic win on Monday at American Family Field, overturning three separate deficits for a 7-4 victory in Game 2. They will bring a 2-0 lead to Los Angeles, where the series shifts for Game 3 on Wednesday night.

“We've got to keep going,” said Brewers captain Christian Yelich, whose two-out, two-run single gave Milwaukee its first lead. “We haven't accomplished anything yet. It was a good start. But still a long way to go.”

That may be true, but Milwaukee is now squarely in control of this NLCS. In the history of best-of-seven postseason series, teams holding a 2-0 lead have gone on to win that series 79 times in 95 tries -- an 83% clip. (Although, of the 16 examples of teams rallying from a 2-0 deficit, two have come the past three seasons: the Blue Jays against the Mariners in the 2025 ALCS and the D-backs against the Phillies in the 2023 NLCS.)

“There's a lot of series left,” said Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy. “Obviously, you'd like to come out of here with one, hopefully two. But that wasn't the case. They're playing really well over there. They're a very good team.”

So are the Dodgers, of course. They’ve won consecutive titles for a reason. They won’t go down easily. But they threw their two aces, Tarik Skubal and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, in Games 1 and 2 in Milwaukee -- and have nothing to show for it.

Because for every punch, the Brewers have had a counterpunch. Three times in the first six innings on Monday, the Dodgers grabbed a lead. Three times, they relinquished it in the bottom half of that very inning. Yamamoto was chased after recording just eight outs, the shortest postseason start of his career.

“He just didn't have it tonight,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “Which is very rare.”

The Brewers made Yamamoto work for everything. And no plate appearance defined their relentlessness better than Jake Bauers’ third-inning walk.

More than seven minutes after he’d first stepped into the batter’s box, Bauers laid off the 12th pitch he saw from Yamamoto, a curveball in the dirt. He flipped his bat and walked to first. Yelich promptly followed with his go-ahead single.

“They're going against arguably one of the best teams in baseball ever put together,” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy. “And they don't care. They won't be denied.”

Yamamoto’s evening was done. The Dodgers would rally to grab another lead in the fifth, capitalizing on a second throwing error from Brewers starter Logan Henderson.

“I didn’t feel like I did my job tonight,” said Henderson, who allowed four runs (two earned) over four-plus innings. “For the guys to pick me up, to chase Yamamoto after the third inning … just a lot of fight, a lot of togetherness.”

Henderson was solid enough, pitching-wise. But he threw away a pickoff attempt in the third, then a bunt in the fifth. After Henderson’s fifth-inning exit, Freddie Freeman gave the Dodgers their third lead of the night with a sacrifice fly off Dustin May.

The Brewers, again, had an answer. They always seem to.

William Contreras launched a titanic game-tying home run, 436 feet to straightaway center field off Dodgers reliever Kris Bubic. An inning later, Contreras laced a go-ahead single to left. He had already driven in Brice Turang with a single off Yamamoto in the first inning.

Contreras became the fourth player with three separate game-tying or go-ahead hits in a postseason game, and the first since Sandy Alomar did so for Cleveland in the 1997 ALDS.

“This is a team that … competes and fights every pitch,” said Contreras, who went 3-for-4 with three RBIs. “Just very appreciative of that.”

The Brewers had a lead for their lockdown bullpen to protect. These days, that’s quite a recipe. Through six games this postseason, Milwaukee relievers have combined to allow just one earned run.

On Monday, that bullpen was again at its dominant best. Beginning with May, four Brewers relievers combined on five perfect innings -- the most all-perfect innings by a bullpen in a game in postseason history.

“They’re just good,” Mookie Betts said of the Brewers' relievers.

“They've got good arms,” Roberts said. “So do we. I think they're just finding ways to win pitches better than we are.”

Milwaukee left no doubt about that in the bottom of the eighth. Turang singled home an insurance run. Bauers did the same. A one-run game became a three-run game. Finally, the Brewers had a cushion. It marked the first time all postseason they’d either led or trailed by more than two runs.

The tense atmosphere at American Family Field became a party. A few minutes later, Aaron Ashby put the finishing touches on a five-out save by punching out Miguel Rojas. The ballpark reached a crescendo.

It won’t be the last time. At some point in the coming days, they’re going to pack this place again. It’s now up to the Dodgers to win at least two of three in L.A., and ensure it’s for Game 6 of this NLCS.

Because the alternative is the first World Series game in Milwaukee in 44 years.