Round 2 between the Dodgers and Brewers opens Sunday, and this NLCS rematch has a very different feel from last year’s 4-0 Los Angeles sweep.
The teams are back at it for a second straight season, with the two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers coming in at 100-62 and Milwaukee at 103-59. But the path to a repeat of last year’s result looks anything but straightforward.
For starters, Jacob Misiorowski gives the Brewers something they didn’t really have in last year’s series: a true headliner on the mound. Milwaukee may have the best pitcher in the matchup, even with 2025 World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto and reigning two-time AL Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal on the other side.
Misiorowski led the majors with a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts in 174.2 innings, and he opened his 2026 postseason with a four-inning outing in Saturday’s 3-2 win over the San Diego Padres. By his standards, it was a rough debut, but the stuff was still electric. He started that game by firing a four-seam fastball that hit 104.8 mph, and Baseball Savant said 52 of his 60 four-seamers - 86.7 percent - reached triple digits.
He already has a strong track record against Los Angeles, too. In three career appearances against the Dodgers, including two starts over the past two seasons, Misiorowski is 2-1 with a 1.59 ERA in 17 innings. He has struck out 27 of the 66 batters he’s faced, which works out to 40.9 percent, while allowing just 15 base runners, or 22.7 percent, according to Stathead.
The Brewers also have a broader edge that could matter in a short series: these kinds of rematches usually favor the team that lost the first time. This NLCS is the seventh rematch in league championship series history and the fifth since 2000. In the four previous rematches, the team that lost the first meeting came back to win the second.
Milwaukee has also handled the Dodgers well in recent regular-season meetings. The Brewers won the last two season series, including 2026’s 4-3 edge, after sweeping Los Angeles 6-0 in 2025.
That matters because last year’s NLCS was a flat offensive showing from Milwaukee. The Brewers averaged one run per game and collected just 14 hits across the four-game sweep.
Their formula is clear: get on base, work counts, and make the most of traffic with situational hitting and a small-ball approach. That style can be hard to use against a staff that’s dealing, as the Dodgers showed last year.
But Los Angeles may not be in quite the same command shape this time around. Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell, who started Games 2 and 4 of the NLDS against the Braves, each walked five hitters.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, led the league in on-base percentage at .341 and posted the majors’ lowest chase rate at 26.9 percent, well below the 30.5 percent league average, per Baseball Savant.
The Brewers showed that patience in their most recent regular-season matchup with Los Angeles from Aug. 13-16.
In that series, Milwaukee batters drew 17 walks in 156 plate appearances for a 10.9 percent walk rate, according to FanGraphs. If the Dodgers’ control issues hang around, the Brewers have the kind of approach that can turn that into damage.
Then there’s the biggest question of all for Los Angeles: Shohei Ohtani. Before the NLDS, he said injuries to his left knee and right biceps were "something I'm just going to have to manage" when speaking to reporters through an interpreter last Friday.
That’s a major storyline because Ohtani was the centerpiece of last year’s NLCS. He won MVP honors against Milwaukee after batting .357 with three home runs and pitching six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts in the Game 4 clincher.
This year, he won’t be pitching again, and his bat has been quiet. He went 2-for-13 with four strikeouts and two walks in the NLDS, extending a slump that stretched through his final 19 regular-season games dating back to Aug.
- Over that span, he hit .160 and had 30 strikeouts against 19 total bases.
Dave Roberts even dropped Ohtani to fifth in the lineup for Tuesday’s NLDS Game 3, the lowest he’s been in a batting order since 2020.
Against a Brewers staff that has plenty of weapons, the Dodgers may need Ohtani at full strength. Right now, that doesn’t look like the case.
In Other News...
Brewers Have A Late-Inning Edge That Could Rattle The Dodgers
If there is a place the Brewers can feel especially good heading into this matchup, it is the late innings. Milwaukees bullpen has spent most of the season giving Craig Counsells old club a way to shorten games, and the mix at the back end has been built around Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby. Megill, acquired after bouncing around to a few organizations, has settled into a role that fits his power fastball and sharper command, while Uribe has given the Brewers a hard-to-hit look with elite run prevention traits and a ground-ball profile that plays in October.
That matters now because the Dodgers are the kind of opponent that can make any lead feel fragile, and Milwaukees relief group has already shown it can carry real weight when the games tighten. The Brewers do not need their bullpen to be flashy so much as dependable, and in a series where one clean inning can change the tone, that edge could become one of the most important parts of the matchup. The only question is how far that advantage can stretch once the biggest spots arrive. [Read more 🡒]
Braves Just Lost A Veteran Arm From Their Bullpen Depth Plan
The Braves bullpen depth chart took another hit this week with Ian Hamilton and Rob Zastryzny both electing minor league free agency. Hamiltons route back onto the market came after the Yankees non-tendered him and Atlanta brought him in on a non-guaranteed major league deal, but his time there never really got traction, with only limited work in the majors and at Triple-A before he was back on the move.
For Milwaukee, Zastryzny is the more familiar name, having previously pitched for the Brewers and a handful of other clubs as a left-handed depth option. His latest stretch never got much momentum either, as injury slowed him early and kept him from establishing a real role, leaving him to choose free agency rather than stay in the organization and wait for another opening. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Roster Philosophy Looks Smarter As Former Player Faces Wrong Fit
With the National League Championship Series rematch against the Dodgers on deck, the Brewers are once again looking like a club built with a clear identity. Milwaukee has long favored depth, flexibility and players who fit defined jobs over chasing the same kind of roster template everyone else is using, and that approach is part of why the team keeps showing up in October with a chance to make noise. It also makes former Brewers player Caleb Durbin an interesting measuring stick, because his game still speaks to the values Milwaukee tends to prize.
Durbin is the kind of contact-first, small-ball player who can help a lineup in the right setting, but he is not built around forcing the ball over the wall. Now he is in a different environment, where the discussion is less about leaning into what he does well and more about asking him to cover for other problems around him. For Milwaukee, it is another reminder that roster fit matters as much as raw talent, and that the Brewers way of doing business can look pretty sharp when contrasted with a club trying to make a mismatched piece serve a different purpose. [Read more 🡒]