LOS ANGELES — On Wednesday afternoon, sitting in every Milwaukee player’s locker in the visiting clubhouse at Dodger Stadium was a laminated note from their manager, who attempted to instill confidence in a young group staring at a 2-0 hole in the National League Championship Series.
Pat Murphy wanted to deliver a message from the heart, to remind a Brewers team that had the best record in baseball this year of the opportunity still ahead as the series shifted to the reigning champions’ venue.
“Greatness isn’t found on the easy path,” part of the message from Murphy read. “It’s earned in moments like this. Keep going. You’re not alone. And you’re not done.”
A day later, they still aren’t done yet. But their road forward is significantly more onerous after their lineup mustered just one run for a third straight game, again unable to crack the Dodgers’ elite starting pitching after the words of encouragement from their manager in a 3-1 defeat Thursday night. The Brewers, who led the majors with 97 wins, now find themselves trailing 3-0 in the series, a deficit only one team has ever overcome in a best-of-seven series.
(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
“We just need a little spark, right?” said Jake Bauers, who knocked in Milwaukee’s’ lone run Thursday. “We’ve got to have something that gets the energy up, and we’ve got to be better. That’s really the bottom line. We’ve got to be better as an offense.”
If there’s any silver lining, Thursday represented a step forward from what their lineup had done against the Dodgers’ first two starting pitchers of the series.
In Game 1, the Brewers managed just one baserunner in eight innings against Dodgers starter Blake Snell, who eliminated that lone threat by picking off Caleb Durbin as he faced the minimum.
In Game 2, Jackson Chourio homered on the first pitch from Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who then spent the next nine innings chewing up and spitting out the Brewers’ lineup in the first complete game from any pitcher in the postseason since Justin Verlander in the 2017 ALCS. Milwaukee recorded just two more hits and one walk the rest of the way and failed to put a single runner in scoring position against Yamamoto.
That was not a problem early Thursday.
Two of the Brewers’ first four hitters reached to start Game 3 against Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow, who escaped the threat with a groundout. The next inning, Durbin tripled and scored to tie the game on a grounder up the middle from Bauers with the infield playing in. Finally, the Brewers’ offense was looking a little more representative of the group that ranked second in the National League this year in batting average.
The Brewers had as many hits in two innings off Glasnow as they had in nine against Yamamoto.
But then came another drought, the ones they had done so well to avoid during a regular season in which they led the NL in on-base percentage. Their offense this year had a penchant for working counts, putting the ball in play, consistently pressuring opponents and making opposing starters sweat.
At least until now.
“Against these guys,” Durbin said, “it’s going to take more than what we’ve shown so far.”
(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
During the regular season, starting pitchers across MLB combined for a 4.66 ERA and a 20% strikeout rate against Milwaukee. In the NLCS, Dodgers starters Snell, Yamamoto and Glasnow have combined for a 31.6% strikeout rate against the Brewers offense.
As a team, the Brewers are slashing .101/.165/.180 in the series.
“These guys are the best in the world, right?” Bauers said. “But that’s what you get when you get to this point in the season, the best arms that anybody has to offer. So, like I said, I can only say it so many times, we as an offense have to be better.”
On Thursday, both lineups’ task was made tougher by the afternoon shadows that enveloped the batter’s box after a 3:08 p.m. first pitch. Glasnow buckled down to strike out the side in the third inning. He then struck out three more in the fourth before retiring all three Brewers batters he faced in the fifth. He had two outs in the sixth when he walked a batter before getting pulled at 99 pitches.
(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
Finally, the Brewers had gotten into the Dodgers’ shaky bullpen with the game still within reach and time to make a dent, thanks to the work of Jacob Misiorowski. The flamethrowing 23-year-old Brewers righty struck out nine batters and departed having allowed just one earned run in five innings of work. Even after Abner Uribe’s ill-advised back-pick allowed another run to be charged to Misiorowski, the Brewers held the high-powered Dodgers offense mostly in check. An opportunity was within their grasp.
But the Milwaukee offense went down meagerly in the late innings against an L.A. bullpen that sports an ERA over 5.00 this postseason.
“These games are usually decided by small margins and small plays,” said Christian Yelich, who’s 1-for-11 with six strikeouts in the NLCS. “We just haven’t been the ones to make them. We’ve come close. We’ve been in basically all the games. We just haven’t done enough to push it across the finish line.”
Again, Durbin was the only player in the lineup to pose a threat late, when he began the seventh inning with a double off Alex Vesia. That would represent the Brewers’ last baserunner of the night, as Vesia, Blake Treinen, Anthony Banda and closer Roki Sasaki combined to fire 3.1 scoreless innings and move the Dodgers one win away from a return to the World Series.
To make matters worse for Milwaukee, Jackson Chourio — the only Brewers player to knock in a run the first two games of the series — left his seventh-inning at-bat hobbling on one leg back to the dugout after experiencing cramping in his irksome right hamstring, which he had aggravated in the previous series.
Afterward, Chourio expressed confidence that he’ll still be able to play in Game 4. Their lineup could use him, as Friday’s assignment won’t get any easier.
The Brewers’ pitching staff has held Shohei Ohtani to two hits in the series. Now, their hitters will have to face him on the mound.
“The goal should be to get the series back to Milwaukee,” Yelich said. “That should be the focus when we get here tomorrow.”
The 2004 Red Sox are the only MLB team ever to go down 3-0 in a best-of-seven series and come back to win. That Boston team was sparked by the man sitting in the home dugout Thursday night at Dodger Stadium.
Dave Roberts’ steal in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series 21 years ago was the catalyst for an achievement no other team has managed since. The Brewers will have to change that if they want to make it to their first World Series since 1982.
“It’s been done before,” Bauers said. “Why not us, right?”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.
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