For the second straight year, the Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers are back in the National League Championship Series, and this rematch has all the ingredients for a tense, high-level fight. Milwaukee is still chasing its first World Series title and trying to get back to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1982. The Dodgers, meanwhile, are aiming at a third straight championship, a feat only the New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics have pulled off.
Last year’s meeting was one-sided, with Los Angeles sweeping Milwaukee in four games. That was a sharp contrast to the 2018 NLCS, when the two clubs pushed the series to seven games before the Dodgers finally came out on top. This time, though, both teams arrive with 100 wins, Milwaukee took the season series 4-3, and the Brewers earned home-field advantage by finishing with three more regular-season victories than Los Angeles.
Both teams also had to earn their way here. Milwaukee got past the red-hot San Diego Padres in the NLDS, while the Dodgers knocked out the experienced Atlanta Braves. With both clubs tested and playing well, a few specific battles could swing the series.
The first and most obvious one is in Game 1, where Jacob Misiorowski and Tarik Skubal are lined up for what could be a terrific pitching duel. Misiorowski, the 2026 NL Cy Young frontrunner, and Skubal, the reigning back-to-back AL Cy Young winner, are two of the best arms in the game right now.
The matchup carries extra edge because Milwaukee was reportedly interested in landing Skubal at the trade deadline, only to miss out. Instead of having him in their own rotation, the Brewers now have to deal with him.
Misiorowski has already shown he can handle Los Angeles. In two regular-season starts against the Dodgers, he has allowed just two earned runs in 12 innings, and he gave up one earned run in five innings against them in last year’s NLCS.
He did have an underwhelming Game 1 in the NLDS by his standards, but the Dodgers have generally not solved him. Skubal has been tough on Milwaukee too, posting a 2.10 ERA in four career starts against the Brewers.
He is also seeing Pat Murphy’s lineup for the third time this year. If this series stretches to Game 5, there’s a good chance those two are back on the mound against each other, which makes this matchup one that could shape more than one game.
The Brewers’ offense against the Dodgers’ bullpen is another pressure point. Los Angeles can throw wave after wave of frontline starters at a lineup, with four All-Star starters in the rotation and two pitchers who have won multiple Cy Young awards.
Blake Snell has won the award twice, while Yoshinobu Yamamoto, last year’s World Series MVP, and Tyler Glasnow have both been All-Stars. That means Milwaukee’s best path is to grind at-bats, work counts, get on base, and avoid chasing pitches outside the zone in order to get into the bullpen as quickly as possible.
That bullpen, though, is no soft spot. The Dodgers’ relief group posted a 3.74 ERA in the regular season, which ranked ninth in baseball, and it caught fire late.
Edwin Díaz has started looking like the All-Star closer he once was after a rough opening stretch. Alex Vesia, Roki Sasaki, and Evan Phillips all put together strong Septembers, and Tanner Scott and Edgardo Henriquez can also make life difficult for hitters.
If Milwaukee is going to cash in late, it will have to do damage there.
Then there is the managerial layer, with Pat Murphy and Dave Roberts set to influence plenty even though they won’t be on the field. Both men served as interim manager of the San Diego Padres during the 2015 season, and both now have major decisions to make.
Roberts has a much simpler job thanks to his loaded rotation and lineup. Murphy, on the other hand, has real choices to weigh.
The Brewers have to decide whether Dustin May gets Game 3 again, as he did in the NLDS, or whether Robert Gasser, who out-pitched May in that series, moves up. There is also the question of whether to use an opener for the right-handed May and how much faith to place in the Brewers’ No. 3 and No. 4 starters. Beyond the rotation, both managers will be judged on matchup decisions, pinch-hit timing, and bullpen usage, especially if the NLCS goes deep into six or seven games.
In the end, the series will still come down to execution from the players. But these three battles - Misiorowski against Skubal, Milwaukee’s bats against Los Angeles’ bullpen, and Murphy against Roberts - look like the ones most likely to decide who moves on.
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