The Milwaukee Brewers are going to the World Series for the second time in franchise history and the first time as a National League team (the Brewers were still in the American League when they went to the World Series in 1982). This also means that the Los Angeles Dodgers have been eliminated, and their chance to become baseball’s first three-time champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees ended Thursday night. The Brewers have swept the Dodgers in four games in the NLCS Championship Series, a year after the Dodgers swept them in the 2025 NLCS Championship Series. Who is to blame for the Dodgers being eliminated in four in the NLCS Championship Series? There’s a lot of blame to go around, so let’s assign it, shall we? 1. The Milwaukee Brewers are still the best team in baseball. We have to start here. The Dodgers were swept in the National League Championship Series because the Brewers outplayed them in every phase of the game. The Brewers improved their starting pitching. Their bullpen was better. His defense and baserunning were better. Their offense was better at both stringing together hits to build a play and hitting the ball out of the park. Pat Murphy also beat Dave Roberts. You name it, and the Brewers did better than the Dodgers in this series. “It’s a pretty simple answer,” Dodgers infielder Max Muncy said after Game 3. “We’re playing like shit. They’re playing really well.” As much as we want to (and will) blame various Dodgers for the sweep, the main reason they were swept is because the Brewers were simply the better team. They were the better team in the regular season based on their records (103-59 vs. 100-62) and run differentials (+214 vs. +201), and they certainly played like the better team in the National League Championship Series. The best team doesn’t always win a postseason series. However, in the National League Championship Series, the best team has played like the best team, period. 2. Shohei Ohtani MLB’s brightest star dimmed greatly… even with Game 4 home run The biggest star on baseball’s most star-laden team wasn’t himself over the final two months of the season. Shohei Ohtani played through knee and biceps injuries and had been so unproductive that Roberts said there would at least be a “conversation” about sitting Ohtani in Game 3. That didn’t happen, and well, Ohtani went 1 for 2 with a walk and a hit by pitch in Game 3, and hit a home run in Game 4. The home run put the Dodgers up 4-0 on Thursday. The Dodgers did not score again. The bottom line is that Ohtani wasn’t a factor until it was too late. It’s hard to win when your best player is so diminished. Every time a team loses in the postseason, the best player receives a disproportionate amount of blame, and that applies to Ohtani in this series. He’s clearly not healthy, but he insists on staying in the lineup, and he’s had multiple opportunities in the first three games to turn things around in his team’s favor, but he couldn’t do it. When the best player performs poorly, he takes most of the blame. It’s been the way of the world since the dawn of team sports. 3. Freddie Freeman Normally, Freeman has been the worst player in the series Freddie Freeman, not Ohtani, was the worst player in the NLCS by both aggregate win probability and aggregate championship probability. He went 1 for 14 in the series with the only hit coming in the first inning of Game 1. Freeman went 0 for 13 after his first at-bat in the National League Championship Series and that 0 for 13 included: Striking out after Mookie Betts issued a leadoff walk in the third inning of Game 1. Game 1. fly out with runners on first and second and no outs in the third inning of Game 2. fly out with runners on first and second and a out in the third inning of game 3. ground ball with a runner on first and two outs in the fifth inning of game 3. That’s a lot of empty at-bats in key situations for one of the best clutch hitters of this generation. Freeman had as many double plays as total bases (one each) in the National League Championship Series, and his only RBI came on a sacrifice fly. You won’t beat a team as good as the Brewers with sacrifice flies. You need bigger swings from your best players and Freeman didn’t provide them. 4. The Supporting Cast Only two Dodgers hitters had consistently strong at-bats in the NLCS. Max Muncy went 2 for 12 with six strikeouts in the NLCS. Teoscar Hernández was 3 for 14. Andy Pages was 3 for 12. Tommy Edman was 1 for 7. Will Smith was 2 for 15 in the National League Championship Series. Postseason legend Enrique Hernandez went 0-for-8 with a horrendous strikeout in Game 3. The Dodgers had runners on second and third with one out in the sixth, and Hernandez threw two pitches in the zone for strikes, then swung his slider out of the zone. It was perhaps the worst at-bat of this National League Championship Series. Freeman was terrible, Ohtani was terrible, and what has so often set the Dodgers apart in recent years (an elite supporting cast) was also terrible. Edman, Muncy, Smith and the Hernandezes are a combined 11-for-58 (.189) in the four games. Betts (3 for 15 with three walks) and Kyle Tucker (4 for 12 with three walks) were the only Dodgers hitters to escape scrutiny. They were their most productive hitters and consistently had good at-bats. Everyone else? 😴😴😴 5. Dave Roberts Roberts didn’t press the right buttons. The coach can’t swing the bat or throw the ball for his players, but he can put his team in the best position to succeed, and Roberts didn’t do that in the National League Championship Series. The third game, especially, was a managerial disaster. Roberts burned the precocious Josue De Paula in the sixth inning when he pinch-hit for Miguel Rojas with runners on second and third and one out, then immediately pinch-hit Enrique Hernandez for De Paula when the Brewers brought in a left-handed reliever. De Paula is a rookie, I get that, but he has a history of hitting lefties well in the minors. More accurately, he has a solid history of making contact against lefties, which is what the Dodgers needed in that situation. A ball in play to run home. Instead, Roberts opted for veteran Hernandez, who struck out weakly. Despite all of his career postseason success, Hernandez went 1-for-14 this postseason and hit .190/.235/.317 in his last 19 postseason games. Roberts never adjusted his record. The NLCS was a flashback for Roberts before 2024, when he too often showed too much faith in his veterans and had an unfortunate ability to stick with starters for too long. In 2024 and 2025, everything went well and Roberts looked like a genius. Those same mistakes, which he got away with in the last two years, reared their ugly heads. The NLCS sweep depends, first and foremost, on the players. Roberts didn’t play his cards well either. It has made things worse.
