Jake Bauers had the headline series, and he earned every bit of it. But in the Milwaukee Brewers’ sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2026 NLCS, the MVP trophy only told part of the story.
Behind Bauers, a handful of Brewers kept stacking winning moments until the Dodgers had no room left to breathe. Aaron Ashby was probably the closest challenger for the award.
Garrett Mitchell swung a couple of game-turning bats. David Hamilton filled in and made an impact in all three phases.
Cooper Pratt kept the lineup moving and the defense clean. JoJo Romero gave Milwaukee huge outs in a short workload.
Ashby’s series was as steady as it was dominant. He led all Brewers pitchers with 6.2 innings, allowed only two hits and one walk, and kept his 0.00 postseason ERA intact.
The two hits he surrendered in Game 4 were both extra-base knocks, and both times the Dodgers managed to put the tying run on third with one out in consecutive innings. Ashby still shut the door each time.
That same outing put him in MLB history. He joined Madison Bumgarner and Lance McCullers as the only pitchers this century to record a three-inning-or-longer save in a series-clinching game. It was the kind of performance that puts a reliever squarely in the MVP conversation, even if the hardware went elsewhere.
Mitchell’s fingerprints were all over the series, too. In Game 3, he immediately answered Bauers’ go-ahead two-run homer with a solo blast of his own off Blake Snell. That back-to-back sequence made Bauers and Mitchell just the third duo in Brewers franchise history to go deep in succession, joining Bauers and Sal Frelick in 2024 and Orlando Arcia and Keon Broxton in 2018.
The accomplishment went even deeper than that. Bauers and Mitchell became only the third pair of left-handed hitters to go back-to-back off a southpaw in the playoffs, joining Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, who did it earlier this year, and Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, who connected off lefty Bill Sherdel in the 1928 postseason.
Mitchell wasn’t finished. In Game 4, he struck again with a go-ahead solo home run off Tanner Scott in the sixth inning.
It was his second homer off a left-handed pitcher in two days, matching his previous career home run total against southpaws. Those were the swings that changed the tone of the series.
Hamilton gave Milwaukee a burst in a different way. With Joey Ortiz struggling and Yoshinobu Yamamoto starting Game 2 for Los Angeles, Pat Murphy inserted Hamilton into the No. 9 spot. The move paid off immediately: Hamilton scored three runs, stole two bases, and collected two hits.
Then came the back issue. Freddie Freeman stumbled over Hamilton while chasing a ball that got past him on a throw over from first base, and Hamilton’s back tightened up. That kept him out of Game 3 with Blake Snell on the mound for the Dodgers, but he returned for the finale and picked up right where he left off.
In Game 4, Hamilton went 2-for-4 with a stolen base and drove in a run with each hit. His RBI single in the fifth cut the Brewers’ deficit to one, and he added an insurance run in the ninth with a solo homer off 2x Reliever of the Year Edwin Díaz. He finished with five runs scored, four hits, and three stolen bases.
Pratt’s value showed up in the little things and the loud ones. He had two hits in Game 2 and three more in Game 3, giving Milwaukee multiple multi-hit games without driving in a run. He did steal a base, and he kept the offense turning over every time his spot came up.
He was just as important on defense. After some uncharacteristically rough play in the NLDS, Pratt went error-free in the NLCS.
He helped turn three double plays in Game 1, then came up with one of the bigger plays of Game 4 when he made a backhanded stop on a 110-mph rocket off Tommy Edman’s bat that carried a .590 expected batting average. For a rookie shortstop, that was a strong way to help close out a pennant.
Romero, meanwhile, gave Milwaukee some of its sharpest relief work outside of Ashby. He threw just three innings, but struck out five batters, including Shohei Ohtani twice and Freddie Freeman once. He worked the edges and stayed in control, and the final strike in the at-bat against Ohtani showed exactly how he was doing it.
Those zeroes mattered. Entering the season, many would have expected Jared Koenig or Angel Zerpa to handle that role. Instead, Romero proved why the Brewers added him at the trade deadline.
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