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.
“Our mentality is to stay focused," said William Contreras. "It doesn’t matter what the game situation is, if we’re ahead or if we’re behind, we’re going to stay on the aggression and stay focused -- and we’ve been able to do a really good job of that as a team.”
There’s a long way to go, but Milwaukee is 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. (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.)
Brewers manager Pat Murphy, however, isn't looking past the Dodgers.
"I respect the Dodgers a great deal," said Murphy. "That's all there is to it. They're arguably one of the best teams ever put together. They're a great team.
"And I'm not going to think about anything but the next game. That's it. Just one inning, one pitch at a time. Don't look ahead. Don't plan. Don't complain, explain; just keep going."
The Dodgers, of course, remain the Dodgers. 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. Yamamoto was chased after recording just eight outs, the shortest postseason start of his career.
With two outs in the third, Jake Bauers battled Yamamoto for 12 pitches. Finally, more than seven minutes after he’d stepped into the batter’s box, he took a 3-2 curveball in the dirt, flipped his bat and walked to first. Christian Yelich followed with a go-ahead single. Yamamoto’s evening was done.
“It was pretty clear he was trying to get in on me a little bit," said Bauers. "It was a battle of not trying to do too much, don’t open up, let one come over the middle [of the] plate. If it comes, don’t miss it, if not, battle it out until you can take the walk. It was straight compete mode.”
Murphy said the battle was the game's turning point.
"We've seen him do that before," said Murphy. "You were here, I'm sure. Yeah, it was a huge at-bat. How many pitches? 12-pitch walk? It took seven minutes, somebody told me.
"Yeah, you think about that and what it does to a pitcher. He can get through an inning in less than seven minutes, and he does all the time. He's one of the best pitchers in the land. It was a great at-bat."
The Dodgers grabbed another lead in the fifth. The Brewers, again, had an answer. They always seem to. 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.
The Brewers had a lead for their lockdown bullpen to protect, and protect it they would with five perfect innings. That’s the most innings by a team’s bullpen, all perfect, in a game in postseason history.