Breaking down the Milwaukee Brewers’ Game 2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS

Breaking down the Milwaukee Brewers’ Game 2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS

Well, the Dodgers are really good at baseball. So good. So good, I’m afraid. Very, very good. Starting pitching is unbelievable. That’s about as good as it gets. I don’t know if a lot of teams can do anything with it. The Brewers definitely did not do anything with it. Yeah, absolutely. And I’m Dominique Gates. I’m joined by J.R. Radcliffe breaking down game two of this 5 to1 victory for the Dodgers over the Brewers. And I mean, you really did take it from there at pitching. And you you see a leadoff home run from the Brewers. And we talked about some of that postseason magic. You thought it might have been there, but you can say that bubble pretty much popped immediately and it was all LA. Yeah, this is the first time in I think 8 years that there’s been a complete game performance from a starting pitcher in the playoffs. And that’s what uh Yoshin Abu Yamamoto gave the Los Angeles Dodgers today. The last time he pitched here in the regular season, he didn’t make it out of the first inning. And you saw Jackson Cheerio take that swing. First pitch he sees. One- nothing Brewers. Jackson Cheerio now tied for the most career postseason home runs. He’s 21 years old and he’s got four career home runs in the postseason. tied for the most in Brewers history and that was it. Yasha Yamamoto was incredible after that. Just completely stymade this team. We saw a lot of ground outs. Uh I think he retired the last 14 in a row. Christian Yalancho for his last 18, but he’s not alone. I mean honestly, you maybe could have just boiled this whole series down to the Dodgers have four healthy stud pitchers and they did not have that for most of the year. They have not had that for most of time. Like these guys, you know, Tyler Glaz now and show Otani as a pitcher. you haven’t had him available and they’re all available and Yamamoto and Blake Snell over the last two days, 17 innings, gorgeous baseball. Snell pitched eight yesterday, faced just the minimum. I mean, there’s not a lot they could have done. They they they could have done more, but quite honestly, they were just they were just blown away by the better team. They needed to steal game one and then then it’s a different series, but they didn’t. And now they’re down two nothing and have to go out to the road. It looks very very daunting. Yes, it does. As far as pitching from uh the Brewers, you know, Freddy Peralta, for the most part, he kind of held his own out there, all things considered. You know, what did you kind of make of his performance? It was okay. It was okay. It wasn’t maybe it’s certainly not the sharpest we’ve seen him, but he held them to two runs in five, five and a third, five and two/3s, I’ve already forgotten, but like he it was five and two/3s because he ended up giving a two out home run there that really made it that made it three to one. You know, not that not that it was over at that point, but like I guess you’d probably in a perfect world like to see a little bit more. But but hey, the Brewers have held the Dodgers to seven runs in two games. I mean, you’ll take that. The Dodgers offense is explosive. Seven runs in two games. Now, granted, they’ve had a lot of breaks. They had that crazy double play at the wall that saw Relic had in game one. Uh they had a bases loaded, nobody out situation here tonight in the late innings against Robert Gasser and managed Gasser and Grant Anderson worked out of that. So, like the Dodgers should have scored more, but you can at least if you want a silver lining point to that like if you if you hold the Dodgers to seven runs in two games, you have to feel good that you might steal one of those. Now, the offense was nowhere near capable of doing that, but still, I I I don’t think the pitching is is to blame here. It’s it’s it’s the Dodgers pitching winning this winning these two games more than anything else, but the offense just it just has not been there. Has not been there. Yeah. And I mean, it’s clear that there is a a gap in terms of talent. I mean, Murphy said it himself. These guys realize that it’s a very, very talented team in the Dodgers. I mean, it’s why they won the championship. They are the defending champs for a reason. But you always talk about trying to have some uh optimism as far as that glass half full for the Brewers. And they talked about going to LA and winning. They’ve done it before. Anything can happen. Yeah, anything can happen. It has happened before that teams have gone down two nothing at home in a best of seven series, have come back to win the series. It has not happened a lot. Four times in history, in fact, it happened in 2020 with this Dodgers team on their way to the World Series in Atlanta. That was the COVID year. Everything was weird. I don’t know if we count it. And then you have to go back to 1996 before that with the New York Yankees against the Braves. The the odds are crazy long. Like no one that’s no secret to anybody. If if you want the silver lining Glasnau and Otani, who are likely to be the pitchers over the next two games, you’re probably not going to see them work eight nine innings. You’re probably going to have a few more chances against the bullpen. If you hold on the way they did in this game with their pitching, the Brewers pitching, you might have more chances. I mean, the Brewers saw one inning of the Dodgers bullpen and that was their most productive inning of this series. So, it is at least possible that they can get into that bullpen and make some things happen. I mean, it’s a tremendous long shot. The Dodgers starters are so good and and you have to win two of three in LA just to bring it back here for a sixth game and then win two more in Milwaukee. I don’t see that happening. Nobody does. But the baseball’s weird. Baseball gods do weird things. And uh maybe, you know, maybe they can sort of they were the best road team in baseball. They won three games in LA this year. Maybe they can reather themselves and figure some things out. I doubt it, but like I mean a lot of people are going to doubt it and you never know. This Brewers team has has bucked the odds before. Yeah. And it really does start with that game three there in LA. You’ll have to see how the Brewers come out. If they can have some momentum, maybe still one of those wins makes you feel just a little bit better as you continue this series. But right now, the Dodgers are 2-0 and getting one step closer to heading back to the World Series, winning over the Brewers in game two of the National League Championship Series. For J.R. Radcliffe. I’m Dominique Yates for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

JR Radcliffe and Dominique Yates recap the Brewers’ 5-1 loss to the Dodgers to fall to 0-2 in the NLCS.

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