This Brewers season has been one filled with hope. A franchise-record 97 wins. Two winning streaks of 11-plus games. Securing baseball’s No. 1 seed. Knocking off the division-rival Cubs in the NLDS. Earning
a chance to avenge a 2018 NLCS loss to the Dodgers and advance to the World Series for the second time in franchise history and the first time since Ronald Reagan was president.
And now, all of a sudden, it feels like someone sucked the air out of the proverbial room (out of AmFam Field?).
Milwaukee was thiiiiis close to tying Game 1 in the bottom of the ninth, but Game 2 was a different story. Jackson Chourio homered on the first pitch of the game from Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but the Brewers’ offense looked lifeless for the rest of the game. Yamamoto pitched a complete game, marking the second time in two games this series that Los Angeles’ starting pitcher has gone at least eight innings. No, this isn’t 1975.
Game 1 starter Blake Snell and Yamamoto both brought their best stuff, but for a team that generally exhibits great plate discipline the Brewers have had some uncharacteristically bad at-bats in big situations. Milwaukee is now in an 0-2 hole partially because the Dodgers are a great team, and partially because their offense has performed below the standard set during the regular season. Now, the series heads to Los Angeles, where Milwaukee will have to win at least one of the next two games to stay alive.
At the risk of being delusionally optimistic, this series is far from over.
Much ado has been made (including by yours truly) about the massive payroll discrepancy between the Dodgers and Brewers. A lot of the doom and gloom I’ve seen among Brewers fans following Game 2 mentions this, stating that the Dodgers are just too talented to beat. How does a small market team beat what is essentially an All-Star team?
This, in my mind, is a logical fallacy. The Brewers ARE good enough to beat the Dodgers. They may not be more talented, but to say that the Brewers don’t even have a chance is ridiculous given how the rest of the season has gone. Nobody would be saying that had Brice Turang hung in the batters’ box on the last at-bat of Game 1 (or simply not swung at a pitch nowhere near the strike zone). Baseball is a game of incredibly small margins, and the Brewers were a couple inches away from both a win and a blowout in Game 1. It’s not like Milwaukee is hopelessly overmatched or anything.
Yes, the offense has generally looked lifeless throughout two games. Do the Brewers need to play better? Yes. I’m confident in saying they will not win this series if the plate discipline and offensive production remains anywhere this bad. Five hits in two games is really bad. But, what about the 167 games before that? They swept the Dodgers in the regular season. They have already proven that they can beat them. The Brewers are down 2-0 not because they’re facing a comedically-stacked superteam, but because their bats haven’t played up to the standard set during the regular season.
I also wonder about the mental aspect of playing against essentially The Monstars. Hitting, for professional hitters, is often more a mind game than anything. Christian Yelich and Brice Turang have often looked lost at the plate in this series. Yelich topped 100 RBIs in the regular season but hasn’t had a playoff RBI since 2018. It’s not like either of those guys just forgot how to hit. I’m not saying mental issues are always easier to fix than physical issues, but sometimes things just click for hitters. Look at Andrew Vaughn upon leaving Chicago. Maybe going down 2-0 will light a fire under the Brewers, a team with its fair share of underdogs. The pitching has alternated between sufficient and stellar — all they need is one or two guys to get hot at the right time.
The Crew have put themselves in a hole, but they wouldn’t be the first team to come back from a 2-0 deficit in the Championship Series. It’s not like it happens all the time, either. Paul wrote an article earlier today about the four examples of teams who lost the first two games of a seven-game series at home, then went on to win the series. Other than the Dodgers’ victory in the 2020 NLCS, nobody has done so since the 1996 Yankees. If you want to extend the criteria to “teams who lost the first two games of a seven-game series, then went on to win the series” the only other team included would be the 2023 Arizona Diamondbacks, who went on to win the 2023 NLCS in seven games after going down 2-0.
I say, why the hell not? This season has already been improbable in so many different ways. PECOTA had the Brewers finishing under .500. Turang had a 10-home run month. Caleb Durbin couldn’t beat out Vinny Capra in March but evolved into a key piece for the Brewers. So did Isaac Collins. I’m from Andrew Vaughn’s hometown and have been his most ardent defender — even writing an article arguing that Vaughn could be a long-term piece for this Brewers team before he’d played a game — but never in a million years saw the whole King Vaughn thing coming. Nobody did.
The Brewers ripped off 11 wins in a row twice this year, so who’s to say they can’t win four in a row? Or four out of five? They took six straight against the Dodgers in the regular season. If Milwaukee plays up to their standard, they can beat this team. Still. They have it in them.
Paul’s right. The odds are, to put it simply, not great. This article isn’t based in stats, or in historical analysis — neither of those things suggest that the Brewers will win. This article is based on the idea that sometimes unpredictable — or borderline impossible — things happen in sports. The 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers knocked off the 73-9 Warriors after going down 3-1 in the NBA Finals. Against prime Steph Curry. The 2004 Red Sox hadn’t won a championship in nearly 100 years — longer than the Brewers have existed as a franchise — when they came back from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Jeter/A-Rod/Mo Rivera Yankees and went on to win the World Series. Those runs both felt magical, as has much of this Brewers season.
What’s to say that this team is any different?
So yes, the Brewers have their backs against the wall. I choose to believe. Call it delusion, call it a bad take, call it homer-ism. Crazier things have happened. It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings, and she’s still on vocal rest. See you tomorrow for Game 3.
