The Dodgers got a jolt in the middle innings, then watched Jake Bauers rip it right back away.
Los Angeles entered Game 3 of the NLCS down 2-0 to the Milwaukee Brewers and back at Chavez Ravine hoping the home crowd would change the mood. Mookie Betts had already called out the atmosphere at American Family Field and said he wanted Dodgers fans to match it. For a while, the game followed a script that might have made that possible.
Blake Snell looked sharp after a rough first pitch. Jackson Chourio led off the game with a homer on Snell’s first offering, but the left-hander settled in after that and retired 15 straight batters after a one-out walk to Garrett Mitchell in the second.
The Dodgers, though, never found much against Brewers starter Robert Gasser. Through five innings, they couldn’t produce a hit, and Milwaukee’s bullpen was waiting behind him.
Then Abner Uribe lost the strike zone. He walked his way into a bases-loaded jam with one out, and Will Smith - quiet for much of the postseason - lined a double into left field to bring home two runs and flip the game in LA’s favor.
That didn’t last long.
Bauers, who had already gone toe-to-toe with Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 in a 12-pitch, two-out battle that ended in a walk, dragged Snell into another fight. He saw 10 pitches in the seventh before getting the one he wanted: a middle-middle fastball. He didn’t miss it, launching a two-run homer to put Milwaukee back in front.
Garrett Mitchell followed immediately with a homer of his own, and suddenly the Brewers had a 4-2 cushion in a postseason game where the Dodgers’ offense had offered little reason to believe a comeback was coming.
It didn’t come.
After Smith’s hit, Milwaukee’s bullpen retired seven straight Dodgers before Shohei Ohtani singled in the eighth. Smith then flew out to end that inning, and Joey Ortiz added two more on a single. The Dodgers went down in order in the ninth, and Milwaukee walked off with a 6-2 win.
Snell had thrown 81 pitches before Bauers came up in the seventh. He had been effective enough through six, but he was clearly fading against Andrew Vaughn, losing both steam and his command as his fastball velocity dipped.
Dave Roberts stayed with him anyway, maybe mindful of the infamous Kevin Cash moment in 2020. This time, trusting the starter didn’t work. It may have cost the Dodgers badly.
Now Los Angeles is one loss from elimination.
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