After beating the Braves convincingly in the NLDS, the Dodgers now face their toughest opponent of the 2026 postseason.
The 103-win Brewers stand in the way as Los Angeles looks to make a third straight World Series appearance, and no team is a greater threat to knock off the mighty Dodgers than Milwaukee.
The Brewers finished the regular season with the best record, the highest run differential, the second-most runs scored, and the fourth-fewest runs against. They have a scrappy lineup that does not strike out or swing at pitches out of the zone, starting pitching depth, a lockdown bullpen, and the most dominant player in the league this season taking the mound in Game 1.
In theory, Milwaukee has what it takes to put an end to the Dodgers’ historic run, but they won’t.
Los Angeles enters this series looking a whole lot like the team that won the championship last year, and it feels like it would take some sort of regression over the next week to beat them.
The Dodgers are jelling right now, and just about the only part of the engine that is not clicking on all cylinders is Shohei Ohtani, and the Brewers have not forgotten what he is capable of after he sent them packing with a 3-home-run performance in Game 4 of the 2025 NLCS to complete the sweep.
Jacob Misiorowski will start Game 1 at home. “The Miz,” as they call him, is unreal. He is basically a created player in a video game. His fastball sits in the triple digits the entire game, and his length and extension make his flamethrower appear even faster in the batter’s box.
The 6’7” 24-year-old sensation is a runaway for the 2026 NL Cy Young Award with a 16-5 record, a 1.80 ERA, and 252 strikeouts.
If the Brewers do not win Game 1 with Misiorowski on the mound in Milwaukee, they will be in deep trouble; on the flip side, if the Dodgers lose the series opener, they will have 3 more all-world pitchers lined up to start the next 3 games, and none of them will be matched up against “the Miz”.
“Every night when you play these guys, you know you are going to face a great pitcher, a Cy Young caliber pitcher,” said Brewers designated hitter Christian Yelich.
“It is one of the reasons they have been so good is just how deep their rotation is and how many options they have. When you face guys like that, you have to take advantage of opportunities and create opportunities. You understand that there is probably not going to be a lot of those opportunities,” Yelich continued.
In the NLDS against Atlanta, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow each started 1 game, and each gave up exactly 1 run. Taking down this rotation in a 7-game series now instead of 5 would take a minor miracle, even for a team as talented as the Brewers.
Photo credit: Dennis Freeman/News4usonline
“You are expecting that if you want to win a World Series on the NL side, you are going to have to go through these guys until somebody proves otherwise,” said Yelich. “That is the standard they have set. That is a credit to them for finding ways to win these types of games. We have been expecting to have to play them since Spring Training.”
It is not a foregone conclusion that the Dodgers will advance, and the Brewers certainly have the confidence and the pedigree to make this a great series. It just feels like they would have to be perfect, and even then, the Dodgers would still have a fighting chance.
The Toronto Blue Jays mostly outplayed the Dodgers for much of the 2025 World Series.
Milwaukee shares a lot of similarities with the 2025 Blue Jays, who took a 3-2 lead over the Dodgers into Game 6. Toronto was the only team to challenge Los Angeles last postseason, but they still came up short.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to compete against the Dodgers because they obviously have proven to be a dominant baseball organization. The opportunity to get in the ring and do that is pretty special, and that is the way we want this storybook ending. When you are writing that the Milwaukee Brewers won the championship, you want it to go through the Dodgers,” said Brewers manager Pat Murphy.
Benjamin Verbrugge is a reporter for News4usonline who studied journalism at CSU Dominguez Hills. “Sports have brought me much joy throughout my life, and I want to give a little back to something that has meant so much to me.” Email Benjamin at benverbrugge8@gmail.com.