MILWAUKEE — This isn't why the Los Angeles Dodgers got Tarik Skubal.
The Dodgers outbid everyone else interested, including the Milwaukee Brewers
, because they thought the two-time Cy Young Award winner would deliver them a third consecutive World Series title. They gave up three highly touted prospects to get Skubal because, when you're the Dodgers, the future doesn't matter nearly as much as the present.What Los Angeles didn't do was get Skubal to lose Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, giving those Brewers their first postseason win over the Dodgers since 2018. It was only Skubal's second loss in the postseason, and first since the 2024 ALDS.
"I didn't do my job," Skubal said after taking the loss in Milwaukee's 2-1 win over
the Dodgers on Sunday, Oct. 11. "Anytime we lose and it's 2-1, I didn't do my job."
Harsh as it might be to say, Skubal is right. Though the Dodgers have rallied after losing a Game 1 before — they lost the first game of the World Series last year and look how that turned out — there's a reason he was on the mound to start this series.
Skubal was 3-1 with a 1.97 ERA in his previous seven postseason starts, including a win in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Atlanta Braves. He'd never gone fewer than six innings in a playoff game or thrown fewer than 84 pitches. Since joining the Dodgers on Aug. 2, Skubal was 5-2, and Los Angeles had won his last seven starts.
If Los Angeles wanted to send the Brewers a message that their 103-win regular season was nice and all but they shouldn't expect this postseason matchup to be different than their others, Skubal was the guy to do it.
Except he wasn't.
Jacob Misiorowski, Milwaukee's young ace, didn't have his best stuff, giving up an RBI single to Andy Pages in the second inning after issuing a leadoff walk to Shohei Ohtani. But Misiorowski and the Brewers bullpen managed to limit the damage from there, allowing the Dodgers only three runners in scoring position over the last six innings.
The Brewers, meanwhile, got sharper against Skubal the more they saw him.
In Skubal's first run through the Milwaukee lineup, he had six strikeouts while allowing just one hit. In his final two innings, he gave up two runs on four hits while walking two and striking out one.
"I thought my stuff was just as good as it was early and late," Skubal said. "They just put the ball in play later in the game."
The Brewers tied the game in the fourth, when Brice Turang led off with a homer on a 2-0 pitch. In the fifth inning, Skubal gave up a leadoff walk to Garrett Mitchell, who took second on Cooper Pratt's sacrifice bunt and scored on Luis Lara's single to center.
After Joey Ortiz grounded out, the Brewers loaded the bases on a single by Jackson Churio and a walk by Turang. William Contreras flew out to right to end the inning, but the damage had been done. Alex Vesia relieved Skubal in the sixth inning.
"A leadoff walk just can't happen," said Skubal, who threw 81 pitches in five innings. "Leadoff walk in that inning and then you give them the ability to bunt the ball over. Then all they need is a base hit and they got it. I think I did a good job of limiting damage that inning, but the leadoff walk just can't happen. It gives them an opportunity to create something, and ultimately that's all they needed today."
Scattering two runs on five hits would be good enough in most games. But not against a team as opportunistic as the Brewers.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto will start Game 2 for the Dodgers, and he's about as good of a second option as there is. He's 8-1 in the postseason overall and has won his last five starts, including a 5-1 win over the Brewers in Game 2 of last year's NLCS.
But Yamamoto was supposed to be locking the door on Milwaukee after Skubal had closed it, not making sure the Dodgers don't head back to Los Angeles in an 0-2 hole.
"We feel good with our guy," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "You can't go into a long series against a team that has the best record in baseball and expect to just win four. It's going to be a long series. We knew it coming in. We had our chances, but they made plays, pitches when they needed to. We've just got to reset.
"We've got our guy going tomorrow, who we trust undoubtedly, and we've got to win a baseball game."
That's what the Dodgers thought about Skubal, too. Look what it got them.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dodgers got Tarik Skubal for this moment. But Cy Young ace 'didn't do my job' | Opinion
