Winning four MLB games in a row isn’t easy. It’s probably even harder against the Dodgers. In theory, anyway. The Brewers may not have broken much of a sweat, since they’ve outhomered the Dodgers what, five to nothing, while winning the first three games of the NLCS.
There aren’t many sweeps-in-a-seven-game series. Under the current playoff format, there have only been two in four-plus postseasons: the Astros over the Yankees in 2022, and the most recent one right now… the Dodgers over the Brewers
last year. If you go back further, you have to go to 2019 (Nationals over Cardinals), and then to 2015 (Mets over Cubs). Basically, it seems like an every-few-years thing in the three series where it could take place. (The last time there were two sweeps out of three series in a postseason was 2012 — the Tigers swept the Yankees but were swept by the Giants.)
Which means that the Brewers and Dodgers have a chance to: 1) engage in a sweep of a seven-game set in consecutive years since 2014-2015; and also, more amusingly, 2) have the team that was swept last year do the sweeping of the sweepers this year.
Will it happen? The Dodgers don’t have much to hang their hats on but their overall team talent: they are being out-wOBAed .358 to .219, and out-xwOBAed .339 to .286. They did actually out-xwOBA the Brewers in Game 1 of the NLCS, but baseball baseballed and they didn’t have a homer for that sweet, sweet, non-sequencing-dependent run, and lost. So, is it time for something funny this postseason?
