MILWAUKEE — Like D.I.Y. shoppers at Menards, the Dodgers got everything they came for.
Relying on their starting pitching to do the heavy lifting, the Dodgers came away with a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday night and headed back to L.A. having stolen home-field advantage in the best-of-seven series after taking two in Milwaukee.
The Brewers will now need to take two out of three at Dodger Stadium in order to send the series back to Milwaukee. Game 3 is scheduled for Thursday afternoon with Tyler Glasnow scheduled to start for the Dodgers.
He will have two tough acts to follow.
Blake Snell’s historically-dominant performance in Game 1 was followed by the first postseason complete game from a Dodgers pitcher since Jose Lima in the 2004 NL Division Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who gave up a home run on the first pitch he threw in Game 2, allowed just two singles over his next 110. It was the first postseason complete game since Justin Verlander threw one for the Houston Astros against the New York Yankees in 2017 and the first in the NLCS since Josh Beckett for the Marlins in 2003.
“The last two nights have been impressive by those two. It’s been incredible,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “That’s probably the two best back-to-back games pitched ever, that I’ve seen.”
Brewers manager Pat Murphy wasn’t about to argue.
“Both those pitchers were as dominant as two pitchers have been,” Murphy said. “We chased way more than we’ve chased all year. We’ve been the best in baseball at not chasing. These pitchers brought out the worst in us.
“The ball-strike (discipline) has been really at the core of our offensive success, and sometimes great pitching brings out the worst in you. … Both guys were dominant for 17 innings. So hats off to those two guys. They deserve all the credit. They really do. They deserve all the credit.”
A plan has come together.
The Dodgers’ desire to ride their starting pitching in October and minimize the exposure of their Achilles’ heel (the bullpen) is being fulfilled. Eight games into their postseason (seven wins), their starting pitchers – Shohei Ohtani, Snell, Yamamoto and Glasnow – have gobbled up 52⅔ innings while allowing 11 runs (nine earned) on 24 hits and striking out 63.
“It’s been incredible,” Max Muncy said. “Blake was historic last night and then for Yama to come out tonight – he gives up a leadoff homer. For him, he’s probably sitting there thinking, ‘Crap, not again’ but then he goes out and completes the game.
“It’s just really awesome to see these guys go out there. You’re right – we said before the postseason we were going to ride our starting pitching and that’s what we’ve been doing. I definitely think that’s what we’re going to continue to do. They’re our strength. I think this is what the front office was imagining when they went out and signed these guys. It’s obviously a long season. You’re going to deal with injuries and not everyone’s always going to be healthy. Realistically the last month and a half of the season, this is what we were seeing.”
Jackson Chourio did ambush a first-pitch fastball from Yamamoto to lead off the bottom of the first inning with an opposite-field home run and raise the specter of Yamamoto’s July start at American Family Field. He didn’t make it out of the first inning that day.
He accomplished that with three consecutive ground outs after Chourio’s home run then worked around an error by Muncy in the second inning and two-out singles in the third and fourth innings. He walked his only batter of the night with one out in the fifth inning after an odd mound visit from Smith and pitching coach Mark Prior with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts standing near the foul line, anticipating a physical issue.
Yamamoto sent them away and retired the final 14 Brewers in order after walking Joey Ortiz.
“That was the first hitter and I felt regrettable, that home run,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter. “But I reset my mind and then I just focused on executing my pitches.”
Yamamoto relied on his splitter, throwing it more than any other pitch (33 of his 111 pitches) and getting half of his 14 swings-and-misses with it.
“It was really good tonight,” Smith said. “It was kind of inning to inning. Some innings it wasn’t biting as much. We kind of did some other things. Some innings it was. We just kind of leaned on it. He was just executing. He kind of had everything going. His curveball was good. The fastball, cutter were pretty good. He was just mixing and throwing strikes and putting guys away.”
After being overwhelmed by Snell’s changeup, in particular, in Game 1, the Brewers weren’t up to the challenge of Yamamoto’s deep pitch mix.
“This guy’s split looks like a heater,” Murphy said. “It comes out of the same tunnel. It looks exactly the same. He’s got an impeccable delivery. He doesn’t miss a lot. And the ball shows up as a heater — bang, goes down. And his heater shows up as a heater and then rises. So it’s pretty impressive.
“It’s been put in our face now for two days, two great performances. But that doesn’t mean the series is over.”
The Dodgers took a 2-1 lead in the second inning then eventually added to it.
At the center of Game 1’s most-dissectable double play when he tagged up twice, Teoscar Hernandez tagged Freddy Peralta for a solo home run in the second inning. Kiké Hernandez singled with two outs and scored from first when Andy Pages doubled down the right field line. That followed a 1-for-27 start to the postseason for Pages.
The instigator of Game 1’s most talked about play when Brewers center fielder Sal Frelick brought his fly ball back into play, Muncy cleared both the center field fence and Frelick’s glove for a solo home run in the sixth inning.
The home run was Muncy’s 14th in postseason play, breaking a tie with Justin Turner and Corey Seager for the most in franchise history.
An inning later, Kiké Hernandez doubled and scored when another slumping teammate got a hit – Shohei Ohtani slapped a single through the drawn-in Brewers infield to bring Hernandez home. Ohtani was 1 for 23 with 11 strikeouts before that hit.
More to come on this story.
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