Baseball postseason, for all of its unpredictability, has brought us the meeting of the two best teams in the sport to determine the National League representative in the World Series. Ahead of last season’s NLCS, the angle of David versus Goliath was heavily played in virtually any analysis—it didn’t help the more centered angle that the Dodgers steamrolled the Brewers on their way to a sweep. This time around it might not be that simple.
The similarities are evident, with the Brewers, yet again,
having home-field advantage as a team that better maximized its skill set in the regular season, all while the Dodgers remain the favorites to advance, as was the case last season. Having said that, foolish are those who project a similar imbalance to that of the previous NLCS—the expectation of a more tightly contested series goes through pitching.
It may appear like a small factor, but the fact that both teams won their Division Series in four games means that Pat Murphy and Dave Roberts can line up their pitching in the ideal way for this Championship Series. And pitching is the great equalizer here, as both teams are stacked in that department and neither offense is currently hot enough to the point of putting into question the likelihood of a series dominated by elite pitching.
For all the talent on the mound for the Dodgers, the odds-on favorite to win the NL Cy Young pitches on the other side in Jacob Misiorowski. He is joined by the rookie Logan Henderson at the front end of a pitching staff tied with the Dodgers for the second-highest ERA+ in baseball. Last year’s Brewers ace, Freddy Peralta, was good, not great, in the series against Los Angeles, and that applied to several key Brewers pitchers in order for the Dodgers to sweep the series in four without major offensive explosions.
With starting pitching on both sides able to dominate, the Dodgers have an advantage from last season’s team in that the bullpen brings a much greater sense of reliability, not only in depth but also in the backend. We probably get the sense most fans will watch Edwin Díaz and Tanner Scott, waiting for them to fail all the way until the hypothetical final out of the World Series—but they’ve done enough to earn Dave Roberts’ trust, and the plethora of options behind them ready for a high-leverage spot if things go south isn’t to be ignored.
Such emphasis on pitching is a must from the Brewers side because offensively, despite Jake Bauers’ breakout campaign at first, the Dodgers still retain a heavy advantage, one that might even be currently underplayed ahead of the series. With little to no action from some of its top hitters, the Dodgers weren’t brilliant, but they still got theirs in key spots against the feisty Braves. Last postseason, the Dodgers offense wasn’t bombastic against Milwaukee, but it did enough to capitalize on strong pitching, while the Brewers’ attack was nowhere to be found against elite Dodger starting pitching.
Second to last in regular-season homers and top five in stolen bases, the Brewers’ offense’s best course of action to put a dent in Dodger pitching is through generating action on the basepaths — putting the bat on the ball and pressuring a defense that has vulnerabilities (I won’t name any names — Teoscar Hernández, cough, cough). It’s nearly unfathomable to imagine Blake Snell or Tyler Glasnow escaping a five-walk outing with just one run against the Brewers like they did facing the Braves.
All season long, the National League has clearly proven to be the superior league. It’s only fitting that the winner of the NLCS, whoever that is, will enter the Fall Classic as the favorite to win it all — the Dodgers in pursuit of a threepeat and the Brewers in search of their first title.
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