The Milwaukee Brewers are going to the World Series for the second time in franchise history and the first time as a National League team (the Brewers were still in the American League when they went to the World Series in 1982). This also means the Los Angeles Dodgers have been eliminated, and their shot at becoming baseball's first threepeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees ended on Thursday night. The Brewers have swept the Dodgers in four games in the NLCS, doing so one year after the Dodgers swept them in the 2025 NLCS.
Who is to blame for the Dodgers going four-and-out in the NLCS? There's plenty of blame to go around, so let's assign it, shall we?
1. The Brewers
Milwaukee continues to be baseball's best team
We have to start here. The Dodgers got swept in the NLCS because the Brewers outplayed them in every phase of the game. The Brewers got better starting pitching. Their bullpen was better. Their defense and baserunning were better. Their offense was better at both stringing together hits to build a rally and launching the ball out of the park. Pat Murphy out-managed Dave Roberts as well. You name it, and the Brewers did it better than the Dodgers this series.
"It's a pretty simple answer," Dodgers infielder Max Muncy said after Game 3. "We're playing like shit. They're playing great."
As much as we want to (and will) blame various Dodgers for the sweep, the single biggest reason they got swept is that the Brewers were simply the better team. They were the better team in the regular season based on their records (103-59 vs. 100-62) and run differentials (+214 vs. +201), and they certainly played like the better team in the NLCS. The better team doesn't always win a postseason series. In the NLCS though, the better team has played like the better team, period.
2. Shohei Ohtani
MLB's brightest star was greatly dimmed ... even with Game 4 homer
The biggest star on baseball's most star-laden team was not himself the last two months of the season. Shohei Ohtani played through knee and biceps injuries and had been so unproductive than Roberts said there would at least be a "conversation" about sitting Ohtani in Game 3. That didn't come to pass, and hey, Ohtani went 1 for 2 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch in Game 3, and hit a home run in Game 4. The homer put the Dodgers up 4-0 on Thursday. The Dodgers didn't score again. The bottom line is Ohtani was a non-factor until it was too late. It's hard to win when your best player is this diminished.
Whenever a team loses in the postseason, the best player gets a disproportionate amount of the blame, and that applies to Ohtani this series. He's clearly not healthy, yet he insists on remaining in the lineup, and he's had multiple chances in the first three games to swing things in his team's favor, but couldn't do it. When the best player underperforms, he wears most of the blame. It has been the way of the world since the dawn of team sports.
3. Freddie Freeman
Normally clutch, Freeman has been the worst player in the series
Freddie Freeman, not Ohtani, was the worst player in the NLCS by both win probability added and championship probability added. He went 1 for 14 in the series and the one hit came in the first inning of Game 1. Freeman went 0 for 13 after his first NLCS at-bat and that 0 for 13 includes:
- Striking out after Mookie Betts worked a leadoff walk in the third inning of Game 1.
- Grounding into an inning-ending double play in the fifth inning of Game 1.
- Popping up to second on the first pitch to lead off the eighth inning of Game 1.
- Flying out with runners on first and second and no outs in the third inning of Game 2.
- Flying out with runners on first and second and one out in the third inning of Game 3.
- Grounding out with a runner on first and two outs in the fifth inning of Game 3.
That's an awful lot of empty at-bats in clutch situations for one of the best clutch hitters of this generation. Freeman had as many double plays as total bases (one each) in the NLCS, and his only RBI came on a sacrifice fly. You won't beat a team as good as the Brewers with sac flies. You need bigger swings from your best players and Freeman didn't provide them.
4. The supporting cast
Only two Dodgers hitters had consistently strong at-bats in the NLCS
Max Muncy went 2 for 12 with six strikeouts in the NLCS. Teoscar Hernández went 3 for 14. Andy Pages went 3 for 12. Tommy Edman went 1 for 7. Will Smith went 2 for 15 in the NLCS. Postseason legend Enrique Hernández went 0 for 8 with a ghasty strikeout in Game 3. The Dodgers had runners at second and third with one out in sixth, and Hernández took two pitches in the zone for strikes, then flailed at slider out of the zone. It was maybe the single worst at-bat of this NLCS.
Freeman was terrible, Ohtani was terrible, and the thing that has so often set the Dodgers apart these last few years -- an elite supporting cast -- was terrible as well. Edman, Muncy, Smith, and the Hernándezes are a combined 11 for 58 (.189) in the four games. Betts (3 for 15 with three walks) and Kyle Tucker (4 for 12 with three walks) were the only Dodgers hitters who escaped scrutiny. They were their most productive hitters and consistently had strong at-bats. Everyone else? 😴😴😴
5. Dave Roberts
Roberts did not push the right buttons
The manager can not swing the bat or throw the ball for his players, but he can put his team in the best position to succeed, and Roberts did not do that in the NLCS. Game 3, especially, was a managerial mess. Roberts burned the precocious Josue De Paula in the sixth inning when he sent him up to pinch-hit for Miguel Rojas with runners on second and third and one out, then immediately pinch-hit Enrique Hernández for De Paula when the Brewers brought in a lefty reliever.
De Paula is a rookie, I get that, but he has a track record of hitting lefties well in the minors. More accurately, he has a strong track record of making contact against lefties, which is what the Dodgers needed in that spot. A ball in play to get a run home. Instead, Roberts defaulted to the veteran Hernández, who struck out feebly. For all his career postseason success, Hernández went 1 for 14 this postseason, and a .190/.235/.317 hitter in his last 19 postseason games. Roberts never adjusted his priors.
The NLCS was a flashback to pre-2024 Roberts, when he too often showed too much faith in his veterans and had an unfortunate knack for sticking with starters too long. In 2024 and 2025, it all worked out, and Roberts looked like a genius. Those same mistakes, the ones he got away with the last two years, reared their ugly heads. The NLCS sweep is on the players, first and foremost. Roberts didn't play his cards well either. He's made things worse.
