MILWAUKEE — It has been coming all season – the Dodgers vs. the Milwaukee Brewers, the two best teams in the National League (maybe in MLB) in an NL Championship Series rematch.
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It’s Hollywood vs. the heartland.
One team portrayed as a money-spewing colossus that is ruining baseball for the impoverished billionaires who own the other teams. And the other a scrappy band of American Legion travel-ball players, relying on fish-fry fundraisers to pay for their uniforms then bunting and stealing bases to beat the bigger kids.
Even Brewers manager Pat Murphy wanted you to believe that last year. He played the underdog card before the 2025 NLCS, saying he was “sure that most Dodger players can’t name eight guys on our roster.”
But he’s changing his tune for this year’s rematch.
“I’m sorry I played that underdog card. Heck … I probably shouldn’t have played that, used that as an excuse for why we didn’t play well,” Murphy said before Saturday’s workouts. “I don’t care who the underdog is. I don’t care who the favorite is. It’s about getting in the ring and fighting it out. That’s what it’s about.”
So this isn’t David vs. Goliath?
“Absolutely not,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, rejecting out of hand the idea of a 103-win underdog. “They have the best record in baseball, if I remember right. They have that for a reason. They’ve got home-field advantage. So we’ve got to play our best baseball. They’re certainly not afraid of us. They’ve got the guy that’s going to win the Cy Young in the National League (Jacob Misiorowski) starting Game 1. So we got our work cut out.”
The challenge the Brewers present is unique.
They hit the fewest home runs in the National League (only the Toronto Blue Jays hit fewer during the regular season). But they had the highest batting average and on-base percentage and the lowest chase rate in MLB in an era when the longball is king and strikeouts are just the price you pay to go deep.
“They’re difficult to prepare for because they play team baseball,” Roberts said. “They pitch, they defend, they run the bases well. They don’t strike out much. They put the ball in play.
“At the end of the day, they take good at-bats and they play baseball. So it’s not small ball. It’s not pesky. It’s just – it’s baseball. … It is unique in our day and age of baseball. I love that style of baseball. … You’re getting past those three [true] outcome kind of at-bats (home runs, walks or strikeouts). And with that, it’s just tougher to prepare for.”
Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts didn’t see a scrappy band of overachievers when he watched the Brewers beat the San Diego Padres in their Division Series.
“I think if you just watched the last series with the Padres you would see that’s very inaccurate,” Betts said. “Did they bunt a couple guys over? Sure. But you’ve got guys hitting homers. (William) Contreras hitting homers, (Jackson) Chourio hitting homers, guys having really good at-bats, driving balls in the gaps for extra-base hits, taking their walks. I mean, they didn’t do a small-ball team to beat the Padres. I think they did what a complete team does.”
The “complete team” approach has served the Brewers well the past three seasons under Murphy – during the regular season. They have won an MLB-leading 293 games in that time (two more than the Dodgers). But they have yet to make it work in the postseason.
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Coming off an emotional NLDS victory over the Chicago Cubs last year, the Brewers were overwhelmed by the Dodgers’ pitching and scored just four runs in a four-game NLCS sweep. Their 6-0 advantage over the Dodgers during the regular season shriveled up like a brat left on the grill too long.
The Brewers want to believe things are different this October.
“Our expectations have shifted, certainly from the first time we played them,” Brewers president of baseball operations and GM Matt Arnold said Saturday. “I think this team has come a long way from where we were then and where we are currently. We’re shaped differently. The talent level is different. The ‘win tonight’ mentality that Murph always talks about is different.
“I just think that we’ve tightened things up in a way here – in a good way hopefully – that has us more well prepared than ever before.”
Arnold acknowledged that beating the Cubs last year “took a lot out of us” – not that beating the Padres was easy but “I think this group is another level advanced from (last year).”
“A lot of it might just be experience,” Betts said of the evolution teams make as they gain more postseason experience. “I don’t think any of it really had to do with lack of skill. They’re all in the big leagues and they’re all really talented players. So maybe some of it was experience. I don’t know. But going into this year, they have the experience so that’s definitely not a thing. They’re playing with confidence so that may have been all they needed to get real experience and a real taste of it and now they know what they have to do.”
Having put away his underdog card, Murphy said Saturday he was “grateful for the opportunity to compete against the Dodgers because they are – obviously have proven to be a dominant baseball organization.”
Last year’s David vs. Goliath talk was just Murphy trying to “mess” with the media, Brewers veteran Christian Yelich said.
“Murph likes to do that,” Yelich said of the manager who has pulled pancakes out of his pockets during in-game interviews. “It’s well documented how good of a team they are, how many great players they have, how many future Hall of Famers are on their side. It’s not to say we don’t have great players. They just have guys who have done it for longer and have pretty established major-league careers and have had a lot of success.
“They’re back-to-back champs for a reason. We have a ton of respect for them. But at the same time, we’re going to go out there and compete with them. … You know going into the season if you want to get to where you need to go, you’re probably going to have to go and play these guys.
“So we’re not surprised to be in this situation and in this series with them. That’s what you kind of expect when the postseason starts, when the season starts, and we’re looking forward to it. We want to play the best. And they’ve certainly been that the last few years. So it’s going to be a great series.”
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Dodgers vs. Brewers: NL Championship Series scouting report, prediction