The Milwaukee Brewers are in a great spot. They also know, better than most, that a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven is not the same thing as a ticket to the World Series.
History says teams that jump ahead 2-0 in the postseason have gone on to win the series 79 times in 95 tries, which gives Milwaukee an 83 percent chance of closing out the Los Angeles Dodgers. But Seattle has fresh experience with how fast that script can unravel.
A year ago today, the Mariners were in the same position against the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series. Their two wins came on the road in Toronto, which made their odds feel even better - about 89 percent by that point.
It looked decisive. It did not stay that way.
The Mariners still had a 2-0 lead in hand when the series shifted, but before long they were back in Toronto for Game 6 anyway. Game 7 brought the kind of ending that still stings around the franchise a full year later.
So yes, the Brewers are up 2-0. But if you’re in Milwaukee, maybe don’t start planning the parade route just yet.
Christian Yelich tried to keep the message tight after the Brewers doubled up the Dodgers in the NLCS on Monday: “We've got to keep going. We haven't accomplished anything yet.
It was a good start. But still a long way to go.”
There’s plenty backing up the Brewers’ confidence. They haven’t just beaten the Dodgers; they’ve taken games started by Tarik Skubal, a two-time Cy Young Award winner, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the reigning World Series MVP. Milwaukee has also held Los Angeles to one extra-base hit, and Shohei Ohtani has, so far, been unable to change that number.
Still, the Mariners can tell you how quickly a series can flip once the other dugout wakes up.
When Seattle went up 2-0 last year, it felt like the knockout blow. Game 1 was a pitching gem.
Game 2 came with a three-homer outburst. They had already beaten Kevin Gausman and Trey Yesavage, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was 0-for-7.
George Springer was 2-for-8. It all looked very much like control.
Then Toronto found its footing. The Blue Jays hit .318 over the rest of the series, with Guerrero going 10-for-19 during the comeback push.
Seattle managed just .213. Revenge for Gausman and Yesavage helped power the turnaround, and by the time Springer delivered that home run, the whole thing had the feel of something that was slipping away for good.
That wasn’t a perfect comparison then, and it isn’t one now. The Mariners were a 94-win team facing a 90-win Blue Jays club.
This NLCS pits a 103-win Brewers team against a 100-win Dodgers team. Even so, the Dodgers bring a heavier resume: back-to-back World Series titles and a payroll about three times Milwaukee’s.
So no, Los Angeles is not going away quietly. It would be foolish to assume otherwise, even after these first two losses.
Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow are still on deck to challenge Milwaukee, and the Dodgers finished second in the league in slugging for a reason. Suppressing that kind of power can work for a while.
Doing it all series is another matter.
In Other News...
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Seattles attention now turns to the shape of that draft board, with the front office eyeing a pool that could include Mississippi State left-hander Tomas Valincius or outfielder Landon Hairston depending on how the lottery breaks. The complication, of course, is that the whole picture could shift if the expiring Collective Bargaining Agreement leads to a lockout, leaving even this one real reason for optimism hanging in the balance. [Read more 🡒]
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Cal Raleighs Collapse Is Now A Warning In Shohei Ohtanis Mess
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Raleighs case sits in the background here as a cautionary example, the kind of reminder clubs hate to confront in October. A player can look indispensable until the grind and the injury concerns start to outweigh the short-term upside, and Seattle learned how quickly that balance can shift. For the Dodgers, the question around Ohtani is now whether caution wins out or whether the urgency of the moment keeps him in the lineup a little longer. [Read more 🡒]