The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-1 on Sunday night in a National League Championship Series rematch a year in the making, taking the opening game of the series.
The decisive moment
Rookie Luis Lara stung a first-pitch changeup from Tarik Skubal up the middle to score Garrett Mitchell, who had drawn a leadoff walk and advanced to second on a Cooper Pratt sacrifice bunt. Milwaukee can score in a number of ways, but taking a fifth-inning lead on a manufactured run and holding it for the rest of the game perfectly reflected its push to the NLCS. It also served as an early reminder that these are not the same Brewers who were swept by the Dodgers last year.
The star of the game
Milwaukee’s bullpen was the standout. D.L. Hall, Abner Uribe, Aaron Ashby and Trevor Megill combined to throw 4⅔ scoreless innings and worked out of several tight situations with composure. Ashby deserves special credit. He covered two innings and induced a pair of infield popups in the eighth, from Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani.
The stat that defined the game
Milwaukee turned three double plays. Jacob Misiorowski struggled early, but the Brewers’ defence bailed him out with 6-4-3 double plays to end the first and second innings. After Misiorowski left in the fifth, Hall induced another inning-ending double play to stamp out a potential rally.
What it means for the series
Since the Dodgers’ championship run began in 2024, this is only the second time they have lost the opening game of a playoff series. The other came in last year’s World Series, when they bounced back to beat the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 2 with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound. Yamamoto starts Game 2 on Monday at 5 p.m. ET, and Los Angeles knows that falling 2-0 behind against a team as strong as the Brewers could cause real problems.
Highlights from the opener
Uribe struck out a batter with runners on to strand two and keep Milwaukee in front. Skubal had six strikeouts through the first three innings, and Misiorowski threw a 102 mph fastball during his outing.