DODGER STADIUM (Los Angeles) – If the Brewers were looking for a boost of playoff confidence after getting swept by the Dodgers in last year’s National League Championship Series, taking three out of four from the reigning champs at Dodger Stadium might have provided it.
“I think it lets everybody in the clubhouse know that we can play with these guys,” said Brewers first baseman Jake Bauers, who reached base five times in Sunday’s finale.
The Milwaukee offense blitzed scuffling Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz for a comeback win Thursday before World Series hero Yoshinobu Yamamoto provided some October flashbacks on Friday in a Dodgers win.
But the Brewers bounced back by holding the Dodgers’ slumbering bats at bay in the final two games. Jacob Misiorowski delivered a gem on Saturday and Logan Henderson out-dueled Dodgers deadline star addition Tarik Skubal on Sunday to take the season series, which could have postseason implications as both teams vie for a first-round bye.
“I really wanted to win this game because it could matter,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said on Sunday. “But we didn’t. So now we’ve got to move forward, but I hope it doesn’t come back to bite us.”
The Brewers headed back to Milwaukee on Sunday night after taking three out of four at Dodger Stadium. (John McCoy/Getty Images)
Here are four takeaways from the Brewers’ series win:
1.
Misiorowski considers last year’s postseason, during which he registered a 1.50 ERA and struck out nine batters in five innings of relief in his lone appearance of the NLCS against the Dodgers, “a real turning point” in his career.
Misiorowski took the confidence he gained from that experience into an overpowering 2026 season that has been one of the most dominant ever from a starting pitcher. On Saturday, the NL Cy Young frontrunner returned to Dodger Stadium for the first time since last postseason and held the Dodgers to one run over six innings, bringing his MLB-best ERA down to 1.75.
“I’ve never seen the first four pitches of a game, 104 [mph],” Roberts said.
Misiorowski fired six straight fastballs to retire Shohei Ohtani to start the game. Ohtani got him back with an RBI triple in the third, the only run that he allowed.
Two innings later, Misiorowski showed his maturity since his breakout rookie year.
He is no longer just a hard thrower, as evidenced by his Houdini act in the fifth inning. With one out and the bases loaded, Misiorowski struck out both Ohtani and Freddie Freeman on sliders to escape. He told me it was the best his slider has ever felt and credited catcher William Contreras for making that adjustment.
In three career appearances against the Dodgers, including last year’s playoffs, Misiorowski has a 1.59 ERA with 27 strikeouts and three walks.
“He’s just matured tremendously,” Contreras said through an interpreter. “Last year, he was a little bit more focused on just throwing the ball hard. This year, he’s coming into the day with a game plan. He knows what he wants to do.”
2.
It’s the ninth inning during Dodgers home games when the home team is ahead, the lights flash and the sounds of trumpets fill the air as Díaz emerges from the home bullpen.
It’s the exact scenario the Dodgers dreamed about when they gave Díaz $69 million this offseason …right up until he takes the ball.
The three-time All-Star closer has been largely unrecognizable this year, particularly since returning from his three-month hiatus after undergoing an elbow procedure. He’s struggling to command his fastball, which opponents are hitting .379 against. His slider isn’t missing bats, either. Overall, Díaz is producing the highest walk rate and lowest strike rate of his career, leading to an ERA over 10.00 through 15 outings as a Dodger.
Garrett Mitchell and the Brewers added to Edwin Díaz’s woes on Thursday. (Harry How/Getty Images)
Díaz had blown two of his last three save opportunities when he was called upon to preserve a two-run lead in the ninth inning in Thursday’s opener against the Brewers. A strikeout to start the ninth seemed auspicious. It was a red herring. Four straight singles followed, giving him his third blown save over his last four appearances.
To this point, it has not cost him his role.
“I know I’m struggling, so I want to do the best thing for our team,” Díaz said. “At the end of the day, if they give me the ball in the ninth, I will try to do my job. If they give me the ball in another inning, I’ll try to do my job.”
Roberts, who said Díaz needs “a runway to find his way,” went back to his maligned closer on Friday. It was not pretty. Díaz loaded the bases on two walks and a hit-by-pitch, but a game-ending groundout preserved the save with no damage done. In that respect, it marked progress. He believes he is trending in the right direction.
Before that Friday outing, Díaz began to make some adjustments to his posture to try to get his momentum going straight to home plate. His pitching coaches also pointed out to him that his arm slot has dropped from last year.
“Just try to lift it a little bit more,” Díaz told me. “I’m not that far away from where I was last year.”
3.
Asked after Thursday’s game if he might go another direction in the ninth, Roberts shot back emphatically.
“Give me another option,” Roberts said. “I have to have other options. And to be quite honest, none of those guys really are throwing the baseball great.”
While left-hander Tanner Scott would seem to be the most obvious choice, the Dodgers’ relief struggles go beyond their scuffling closer. Dating back to the start of July, their bullpen ranks in the bottom 10 in ERA. It’s probably not a coincidence that it’s also around the time that Ohtani stopped pitching while nursing his sore knee.
The Dodgers haven’t been able to carry an extra pitcher the way they can when Ohtani is active on the mound (since two-way players don’t count against a team’s 13-pitcher roster limit). In addition, they’ve maintained their six-man rotation even after limiting Ohtani to one-way duties, which means operating with a seven-man bullpen.
Los Angeles can survive that way when off days are built in, but it can be taxing in stretches like the one it’s in, where it has played 18 games over 19 days with few blowout wins or losses mixed in. That has meant pushing their top leverage arms more often than they would like, all while being without right-handers Blake Treinen, Brock Stewart and Will Klein in the ‘pen.
Dodgers relievers surrendered four more runs (two earned) in Sunday’s loss, with the defense offering little help behind them. They’ll get a bit more coverage going forward, with lefty starter Justin Wrobleski going to the injured list and an eighth bullpen arm getting called up.
“When you’re pitching in hot spots every night — it seems like every outing for our relievers has been a leverage situation — I think that makes it tougher,” Roberts said. “Margins are smaller. So, I think that we’ve got to find ways to kind of give them a little bit of margin, too.”
That would require hitting, which the Dodgers have not done much of lately …
4.
The Dodgers are now 18-21 since the start of July. Their offense ranks in the bottom 10 in baseball in OPS over that stretch, and it hasn’t turned a corner in August.
“I just don’t see the consistent plan of attack, one through nine,” Roberts said. “This has been four, five, six weeks of below-average production from our offense.”
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It hasn’t helped that outfielder Kyle Tucker, who’s making $60 million this year, remains a below-league-average hitter. His home-road splits are particularly confounding. He has looked mostly like himself on the road, where he has an .840 OPS.
At Dodger Stadium, meanwhile, he has been one of the worst qualified hitters in baseball. Roberts said he can see the frustration building, enough so that Tucker was given Saturday’s game off against Misiorowski.
“Just kind of reactions to at-bats, whether it’s the first at-bat of the game, and you’re really showing emotion – that’s a tell from a guy who doesn’t show a lot of emotion,” Roberts told me. “So, those things, as they build up for me that tells me that you need to watch a baseball game and kind of take some of that frustration, put it to the side.”
Kyle Tucker’s woes crept into the field on Sunday, when he misplayed a fly ball in the ninth inning. (Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
On the Dodgers’ latest road trip, Tucker went 8-for-22 with two homers and a triple. Then he returned home and immediately regressed, going hitless in 19 at-bats this homestand. To make matters worse, he also dropped a fly ball against the wall in the eighth inning of Sunday’s loss, a blunder that was met by boos.
The Dodgers’ offensive struggles extend further. Shortstop Mookie Betts has shown positive signs lately but remains a below-league-average hitter on the year. First baseman Freddie Freeman doesn’t have an extra-base hit in August, and outfielder Teoscar Hernandez and second baseman Tommy Edman have both struggled this month.
The Dodgers have also grounded into more double plays than any team in baseball, one example of their aging roster. They added two more of those to their docket on Sunday, including a particularly costly one when Ohtani stepped to the plate with runners on the corners representing the tying run in the eighth inning Sunday.
They scored just 10 runs over the four-game series and are averaging 3.33 runs per game in August.
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