Monday night, Oct. 19, would’ve been Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. Instead, it marked the fourth day that the MLB world woke up in the aftermath of the Milwaukee Brewers dropping the hammer on the Los Angeles Dodgers.
On the heels of winning both an MLB and franchise-best 103 games in the regular season and defeating the San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series, the Brewers swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS, which came after Los Angeles swept Milwaukee in the same spot last season.
And Brewers manager Pat Murphy couldn’t be more proud of his club.
“Their starting staff are all Cy Young Award winners or MVPs, so you’re talking about guys, if they’re on their game, which they were, you really got to scrape and claw to get back in it. I really can’t say that I could predict that [sweeping the Dodgers], but I knew we weren’t going to back down, and that was the most gratifying part is that these guys hung in there and said, ‘We’re not going to be denied,'” Murphy told Colin Cowherd about the Brewers sweeping the Dodgers on Tuesday’s edition of “The Herd.”
“Got behind in every game and still came back and responded, and that’s what this whole thing is about. Competing is about responding. We’re all going to get hit in the face. To see these guys respond, it was priceless.”
The Brewers’ collective pitching staff held the Dodgers to 11 runs in the series.
The aforementioned Los Angeles starting rotation included two-time American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal — whom the Dodgers acquired from the Detroit Tigers before the MLB trade deadline — two-time All-Star and 2025 World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 2023 NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell and right-hander and 2024 All-Star Tyler Glasnow; two-way superstar and four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani served as the Dodgers’ designated hitter in the playoffs, but he only made 14 outings this season due to knee inflammation, among other injuries.
As for the regular season, Milwaukee’s offense was first in MLB in hits (1,422) and on-base percentage (.341), tied for first in batting average (.258), second outright in runs (832) and fifth in stolen bases (162). Granted, they were tied for 28th with just 154 home runs.
Brewers second baseman Brice Turang was third among MLB position players with 7.3 wins above replacement, while driving in a team-high 100 runs; William Contreras, who has blasted three home runs this postseason, led MLB catchers with 94 RBIs in the regular season; first baseman/corner outfielder Jake Bauers tallied a career-high 26 home runs and 86 RBIs, while also posting career highs across the board on the slash line front (.266/.389/.484).
Elsewhere, left fielder Jackson Chourio, who hit a walk-off, two-run single with the Brewers losing and down to their last strike against the Padres in Game 2 of the NLDS, logged 25 home runs, 75 RBIs, 4.9 wins above replacement and a .487 slugging percentage across 127 regular-season games.
As for their work on the hill in the regular season, the Brewers’ starting rotation was second in MLB in opponent batting average (.220), tied for third in WHIP (1.14) and fifth outright in ERA (3.61). Meanwhile, their bullpen was third in the sport in both ERA (3.40) and opponent batting average (.223) and tied for fifth in WHIP (1.23).
Flame-throwing right-hander Jacob Misiorowski led MLB with a 1.80 ERA, an 0.80 WHIP, 252 strikeouts and a 232 ERA+; rookie Logan Henderson posted a 2.47 ERA, an 0.84 WHIP and 110 strikeouts across 18 starts.
The standout pitcher of the 2026 postseason for the Brewers, though, has been left-handed reliever Aaron Ashby, who hasn’t given up a run, has surrendered just five baserunners (four hits and three walks) over 12 ⅓ innings and appeared in six of the team’s eight games. Meanwhile, closer Trevor Megill and left-hander DL Hall have combined to throw 11.0 scoreless innings this postseason.
“I never like to look at it like, ‘We’re the best.’ I always feel like there’s somebody bigger, stronger, faster, more capable, and there probably was. But there were times during the season when I shook my head, and I was like, ‘These guys like winning!’ These guys really like this,” Murphy said of the Brewers.
“But I don’t think we went into the postseason too cocky. We went in there ready. We went in there with a feeling of ‘let’s play pitch-to-pitch in the now, and let’s see who wins.'”
Either way, we’ll have a first-time World Series champion, as both the Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays, who won an American League-best 98 games, have never won the Fall Classic and combine for just three World Series appearances altogether prior to this year; the Rays won the AL pennant in 2008 and 2020, with the Brewers winning the NL pennant in 1982.
Game 1 of the 2026 World Series is on Friday night at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.
