After a three-day hiatus, the Dodgers are back in business on Sunday as they begin the 2026 National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Tarik Skubal was handed the ball for Game 1 of the NLDS against the Atlanta Braves, and he managed to allow just one run while striking out seven across six innings of work. Fresh off a full week of rest, Skubal will once again be handed the ball to kick off the series, this time doing so against the soon-to-be NL Cy Young award winner Jacob
Misiorowski.
Sunday’s Game 1 matchup will feature quite the unprecedented pitching matchup, and Mike Petriello of MLB.com breaks down just how rare a matchup between Skubal and Misiorowski is compared to other historic postseason pitching matchups.
If a rare matchup of 100-win teams in the NLCS isn’t good enough, if a rematch of last year’s NLCS – and the third time since 2018 – isn’t good enough, there’s this, too. You just don’t really see starting pitching matchups like this, really ever. We’re incredibly fortunate to get this one, potentially twice in the next week.
Facing Misiorowski will be another rigorous test for the Dodgers in their quest for a third consecutive championship, and for a struggling Shohei Ohtani, he’ll have to find a way to bounce back offensively against one of the National League’s premier young aces.
Dave Roberts still has confidence that Ohtani will turns things around at the plate, and the two-way star worked in some extra batting practice while the Dodgers have been preparing at American Family Field, per Maddie Lee of the Los Angeles Times.
“There’s nothing right now I’m going to hang my hat on outside of, I just believe in the person and the talent,” Roberts said in a conference call Friday. “I do think that getting a couple days out of a game environment to kind of work on his swing, rest the body, rest the mind is a benefit. I’m just never going to count Shohei out.”
Max Muncy and I share basically one thing in common; we aren’t afraid of ghosts. That’s why he has elected to stay at the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee this series, even with its notoriety as a “haunted” hotel, per Grant Young of the California Post.
“If there’s a ghost there, come on in. If the TV turns on, I know he’s friendly. Hopefully he’s just not there to disturb me. I welcome them. If there’s a ghost, let’s have a good time with it, come on in. It is what it is,” he added.
