The smarter team has a tendency to win in the postseason, especially if their discipline matches their talent and if their coaching staff gives them the information they need to succeed. 

For the 2026 regular season and the playoffs, the Milwaukee Brewers simply outsmarted the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers’ front office is going to have to recognize that and figure out just how it was that the Brew Crew not only stole their lunch, but also convinced them to pay Milwaukee to do it. 

Shane Drohan started for the Brewers. Sure, he started 19 games this year, but he averaged just five innings and had a 5.09 ERA as a starter during the course of the year.  This was an opener situation from the get-go, but it didn’t seem like the Dodgers recognized that. Roberts started Miguel Rojas at third base against the lefty but then felt the need to substitute Max Muncy for him once the Brewers’ Pat Murphy brought in Dustin May. 

Muncy left a small village on the basepaths. Rojas could only sit and watch. There were several situations later where Rojas in the game would have given the Dodgers an advantage. It seemed like desperation at the time… because it was. 

Game 4 was a long shot to begin with for L.A. Then-player Dave Roberts’ 2004 Boston Red Sox team is the only team to overcome a three-games-to-none deficit. The Dodgers would need Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman to finally start getting some hits.

For Freeman, the problem wasn’t contact, but rather he was hitting Brewers pitches where they wanted him to hit them. Freeman hit the ball hard half a dozen times…right at waiting fielders.

Ohtani had been injured for two months and struggled badly. But, he had been working towards regaining his form. It was no surprise to me that he hit one into the bleachers in the second inning of Game 4. He blistered a ball up the middle in Game 3. His feet had been much quieter and his first at-bat was solid…until a swing and miss at a Drohan pitch in the first inning. When May was brought in and faced Ohtani, the former Dodger had no interest in putting another one in the other batter’s box. When he dropped a curve ball on the inner third, Ohtani put it in the seats in right. Later, the Brewers would remember the pitch that should have been thrown and Ohtani flailed at it to kill a rally.

A Tyler Glasnow pitching video should be must-see viewing for any young pitcher. When Glasnow falls off the mound to the left, the pitch sails up and to the right. When he follows through, he’s money. It took Milwaukee four innings, but they finally figured it out.

One of the really bad pitching decisions came in the top of the fourth inning against Jake Bauers. Glasnow missed with a fastball that followed a curveball up and away. Glasnow was falling to the left on the heater and following through nicely with the curve. After the missed fastball there seemed to be little doubt that the next pitch would be a curveball. The follow through confirmed it. Bauers bounced one into the seats for a ground rule double and two runs on the board. A fastball up and away would have been the pitch. 

Glasnow continued to fall off the mound with the fastball and then the curveball. Pitching coach Mark Prior was apparently catching up on missed episodes of The Bachelor because there wasn’t a hint of a mound visit. The eighth hitter, Sal Frelick walked and then stole second. Ninth-place hitter David Hamilton singled him in. 

Evan Phillips came in and couldn’t find the plate with the frisbee sweeper. He didn’t adjust. The last one he threw wasn’t even close. Bases loaded.

Alex Vesia came in to face Bauers and walked him on four pitches, all of which saw Vesia overthrowing and falling off the mound toward third. It’s hard to call out Prior in this one too much since Vesia normally falls off the mound. But, he usually falls more toward the on-deck circle when he’s on. 

Roberts brings Tanner Scott in the game in the sixth inning. Did the Dodgers run out of starters? Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, and Emmett Sheehan were all available. What was the plan after Scott? Edwin Diaz? It was …weird…for lack of a better term. Scott has the been the closer almost the entire year, not Diaz. 

Scott wasn’t sharp. Garrett Mitchell laid off some 0-2 pitches that were not close and finally drove a 3-2 fastball into the right centerfield seats. 

L.A would not go quietly, just like they haven’t all year. Andy Pages doubled. Then Kike Hernandez bunted him to third. Wait. What? The guy who has delivered against lefties time and time again in the postseason was NOW asked to bunt? It got the runner over but the Dodgers suffered the same fate had they had so many times this year against good teams. They could not make the adjustment to get the runner in.

Give credit where credit is due. Aaron Ashby’s curve ball might be the best in the majors. For a right handed batter to miss as badly as Teoscar Hernandez did, that’s saying something. 

The “plan” was to have Diaz throw a third inning for the first time in a decade? So much for, “Go with what got you here.”

The Hamilton homer in the ninth seemed meaningless, except to put an exclamation point on a series in which the supposedly light-hitting Brewers hit seven home runs while the “slugging” Dodgers had only one.  

But wait. Brewers manager Pat Murphy trots Ashby out for a third inning. Why do these two clubs even have closers? 

In the ninth, Tommy Edman almost made him pay with a scorcher in the hole. Cooper Pratt made a great play to throw him out. 

Pages watched a fastball and a hanging curveball go by for strikes. Make that two hangers. Two outs. 

Kiké Hernández then watched 99. Swung at 84 and then got another hanger. This time, he didn’t watch it, he put a charge into it…right into the glove of Jackson Chourio. 

It’s not a coincidence that the Brewers beat up on the Dodgers. It was great planning and great execution. There was a little luck in there, too, and some bad calls by home plate umpire, Ryan Additon that altered the course of at-bats. But, the outcome was inevitable. The Brewers out-hit, out-pitched, and out-planned the Dodgers. And that is what made all the difference.