The Milwaukee Brewers have put themselves in a commanding spot in the National League Championship Series, and one of the biggest reasons is starting to look obvious.
After taking Games 1 and 2 from the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee will head to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday night with Robert Gasser set to face two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell. That is a difficult matchup on paper, but the Brewers may already have uncovered the one area where the Dodgers can be pushed around: the bullpen.
Los Angeles came into the series carrying all the usual heavyweight labels. The rotation looks stacked with Tarik Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow.
The lineup is loaded too, powered by former MVPs Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Even so, the relief corps has not been on that same level, and Milwaukee has leaned into that gap.
Game 2 made the point loudly. After knocking Yamamoto out early, the Brewers forced the Dodgers’ bullpen into heavy work, and Milwaukee responded by scoring four runs and collecting eight hits.
If the game had stayed in Milwaukee and the Brewers had still been trailing, the Dodgers’ relievers would have been on track for 6 1/3 innings. Instead, they had to absorb 5 1/3 innings of pressure, and that is exactly the kind of burden that can tilt a postseason series.
That weakness was flagged before the NLCS, and it has already shown up on cue. Los Angeles is also dealing with the absence of Blake Treinen, which only thins out the group further.
Among the four teams still alive in the playoffs - the Brewers, Dodgers, Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians - Los Angeles has the third-ranked bullpen ERA at 3.13. Across all playoff teams, the Dodgers’ relief unit sits fifth overall. Milwaukee, meanwhile, owns the No. 1 bullpen ERA in the postseason at 0.31.
The Dodgers still have the kind of roster that usually leaves opponents looking for cracks. They are the Dodgers, after all, and there are not many easy places to attack. That is a big part of why they won two straight World Series titles and entered the NLCS as the favorites.
But in a postseason where starters are not working deep into games, the bullpen matters more than ever. Milwaukee has already shown the formula: get the starter out, then go to work. If the Dodgers’ October run ends here, that relief group is the most likely culprit.
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