MILWAUKEE – One by one, their advantages are vanishing.
Their edge in starting pitching?
Marginalized by the Brewers’ lineup.
Their superior offensive firepower?
Held without a home run in the first two games of this National League Championship Series.
Shohei Ohtani?
Reduced to being blown away by mid-90s fastballs.
The Dodgers are behind by two games in this race to four wins, and in the wake of their 7-4 defeat in Game 2 at American Family Field, they find themselves praying the Brewers will miraculously run out of gas before they reach the finish line.
Before the Dodgers can win this series, they will have to get back into it first.
They will play at home over the next three games. They have Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow lined up to pitch in Games 3 and 4, respectively.
But that alone doesn’t guarantee anything, not with how the Brewers are playing. They have an unspectacular but industrious offense. They have a relentless bullpen. And they display the kind of edge that makes it obvious they believe they can take down the two-time defending World Series champions.
If there was a game the Brewers were expected to drop, it was Game 2. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was pitching for the Dodgers.
The Brewers didn’t just beat Yamamoto. They wore him down and forced the Dodgers to empty their bullpen.
The result was an unmitigated disaster for the Dodgers, who have made it an annual tradition to have the Japanese right-hander bail them out of trouble at this time of the year.
The Dodgers were intimately familiar with the script from which the Brewers read.
Run up the pitch count of the starter.
Force him out of the game early.
Get into the other team’s bullpen.
Only this time, the Dodgers weren’t the team executing the game plan. They were the team against which the plan was being executed, and Yamamoto was the target of the attack.
Instead of a big game they anticipated from Yamamoto, the Dodgers received a big flop.
Yamamoto struck out Jackson Chourio to start the bottom of the first inning, and appeared to follow that up by striking out Brice Turang on three pitches. But what should have been a called third strike was called a ball by home plate umpire Chris Segal. Yamamoto and Smith didn’t challenge the ruling, and Turang made them pay with double to left field.
Turang scored on a single by William Contreras to tie the game, 1-1.
Yamamoto threw 25 pitches in the first inning.
Two innings later, Yamamoto was once again the victim of a missed called third strike. Once again, Turang was the hitter, and Segal’s decision on a borderline pitch turned the would-be strikeout into a walk that gave the Brewers runners on first and second base with one out.
Two batters later, Jake Bauers drew a 12-pitch walk to load the bases, setting the stage for a two-run single by Christian Yelich that moved the Brewers in front, 3-2.
With his pitch count at 75, Yamamoto was removed from the game. The 2 ⅔-inning appearance was the shortest postseason start Yamamoto had made in the major leagues.
Once the game morphed into a battle of the bullpens, the game was decided. The Brewers were able to play to their greatest strength. The Dodgers had to expose their greatest weakness.
To win the World Series last year, the Dodgers had to overcome a three-games-to-two deficit against the Toronto Blue Jays. Their title run the previous year started with them reversing a two-games-to-one deficit against the San Diego Padres.
The Dodgers have overcome deficits before.
But the Brewers are presenting them with the sort of problems they might not even be able to solve.
