The Brewers have the Dodgers on the ropes, and they did it with a jolt, a response, and then a knockout swing.
Milwaukee beat Los Angeles 6-2 on Wednesday night in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, moving out to a 3-0 series lead and putting the reigning champions one loss from elimination. The first punch came immediately. Jackson Chourio led off the Brewers’ night by jumping on the first pitch he saw from Blake Snell and sending it out for a home run.
Snell regrouped after the rough start and was excellent for a long stretch, at one point retiring 14 hitters in a row. That run, along with a two-run double from catcher Will Smith, gave the Dodgers a brief 2-1 edge in the sixth. Milwaukee didn’t let it last.
Jake Bauers and Garrett Mitchell followed with back-to-back home runs off Snell in the seventh, forcing the left-hander out of the game. Bauers’ blast came on the 11th pitch of his at-bat, after he had already worn down Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 with a 12-pitch battle.
"No matter what happens, especially in the postseason, punches are going to be thrown, it's going to be a back-and-forth," Mitchell told Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports during a postgame interview.
"You can't really stop yourself from getting punched, but it's how you respond to those punches and we responded."
Milwaukee’s pitching held up behind the power surge. Robert Gasser gave the Brewers five scoreless innings and allowed just three hits in a no-decision. DL Hall finished with 2 1/3 innings of relief and earned the win, and Trevor Megill closed it out for his fourth save of the postseason.
The Dodgers had opportunities, but they couldn’t cash them in, going 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position and stranding eight baserunners.
Shohei Ohtani, dropped to sixth in the lineup, went 1-for-2 with a walk. Cooper Pratt also made his presence felt for Milwaukee, collecting three hits and scoring a run.
Now the Brewers get a chance to finish the job Thursday, when they can sweep the defending champions and reach the World Series for the first time since 1982.
In Other News...
Brewers World Series Return Just Created A Rare Milwaukee Sports Moment
Major League Baseball has already started shaping the 2026 calendar around a Brewers team that has put Milwaukee in an unusual spotlight. With the World Series set to begin at the end of October, the league announced all seven games will start at 8 p.m. Eastern, and Milwaukee would have the first two games at home if the Brewers get there. The Cleveland Guardians or Tampa Bay Rays would host the middle portion depending on how the American League Championship Series plays out.
The ripple effect reached across town, where the Bucks adjusted their home opener to make room for a potential citywide overlap. Their game was moved from 7 p.m. Central to 3 p.m., a rare scheduling move that gives Milwaukee fans a chance to keep one eye on the court and another on a possible October baseball run. It is the kind of crossover moment that only comes around when a team is deep enough into a postseason chase to force everyone else in the city to plan around it. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers World Series Breakthrough Came With A Tribute Milwaukee Fans Felt
Bob Ueckers absence has lingered over Milwaukee all season, and with the Brewers heading to the World Series for the first time since 1982, the timing has given this run a deeper emotional charge. Uecker, who died in January 2025, was so tied to the franchise that every big moment has felt inseparable from his voice, his humor and the decades he spent turning Brewers baseball into something larger than the box score.
Jeff Levering understood the setting when the pennant was clinched, and his tribute during the moment landed the way only a Milwaukee call could. For fans, this is no longer just a chance to celebrate a breakthrough that has been more than four decades in the making. It is also a way to carry Ueckers legacy into October, with the citys most familiar baseball voice still echoing through its biggest stage. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Just Saw Why The Dodgers Face A Huge Skubal Decision
The Dodgers went all-in on Tarik Skubal before the Aug. 3 trade deadline, bringing in the left-hander to firm up a rotation they believed could carry them through October. For much of the stretch run, he looked like the kind of difference-maker they had in mind, and his presence only added to the sense that Los Angeles had done enough to chase another deep postseason run.
Then came the NLCS, where Milwaukee swept the Dodgers and turned the focus from what Skubal brought on the mound to what comes next around him. The uncertainty now is bigger than one October stumble, because the Dodgers still have to figure out how long they can actually keep him in the fold with the landscape around the sport potentially changing in a hurry. [Read more 🡒]