By: Jeremy Durham, TriStar Daily Sports Contributor
I’m a Dodgers fan, and I’m not hiding it. I’m also on a heater. In my NLDS preview, I took the Dodgers to beat Atlanta in exactly four games at +270, and it cashed. So let’s look ahead.
The NLCS: Dodgers vs. Brewers, Part II
These were the only two 100-win teams in baseball, and they meet in the NLCS for the second straight year. Last October, the Dodgers swept Milwaukee and outscored them 15-4. This Brewers team is better. They went 103-59, had the best record in baseball, and have home field.
The pitching matchups (projected):
Game 1: Tarik Skubal (12-7, 2.72) vs. Jacob Misiorowski (16-5, 1.80)
Game 2: Blake Snell (4-1, 1.90) vs. Logan Henderson (11-3, 2.47)
Game 3: Yoshinobu Yamamoto (14-9, 2.53) vs. Dustin May (7-9, 4.70)
Game 4: Tyler Glasnow (5-2, 3.53) vs. Robert Gasser (5-5, 3.87)
Game 1 is the marquee matchup. Misiorowski led the majors in ERA and strikeouts, and nobody throws harder. But San Diego showed the blueprint in the NLDS: foul off everything, run up his pitch count, and get him out of the game after four innings. If the Dodgers can make him work, they get into Milwaukee’s bullpen early. The Dodgers answer with Skubal, the two-time Cy Young winner they pried away from Detroit at the deadline for exactly this moment.
The middle of the series is where it gets interesting. Game 2 is the one to watch. Snell doesn’t pitch deep into games even when he’s on, and against Atlanta he walked five and couldn’t get out of the fourth. That puts a lot on the bullpen. It was terrific against the Braves, but four or five innings every time Snell pitches is a heavy load. Henderson can give Milwaukee real length. That’s why Game 3 matters so much: Yamamoto, maybe the best big-game pitcher in baseball, against May. If the Dodgers split in Milwaukee, Game 3 is where this series turns.
Lineup watch: The Brewers will have to shuffle against the Dodgers’ two lefties in Games 1 and 2. Expect Sal Frelick to sit, and Andrew Vaughn, just back from the injured list, could get the call at first over Jake Bauers. The Dodgers barely platoon. The one spot in flux is second base, where Kiké Hernández and Tommy Edman could split time, especially with Miguel Rojas nursing a sore back.
Milwaukee’s strengths: The Brewers can hit. They led the National League with 832 runs and had a +214 run differential. Their bullpen had the better regular-season ERA (3.40 to the Dodgers’ 3.74). And they won the season series 4-3, including three of four at Dodger Stadium in August. Nobody should be calling them a pushover.
The Dodgers’ strengths: Depth. No team left in the field can match a rotation fronted by Skubal and Yamamoto. The offense nearly matched Milwaukee’s (801 runs, with a nearly identical .337 on-base percentage), and it doesn’t need any one guy to carry it. Shohei Ohtani is streaky in October, but when he’s hot, he can end a series in one night, and Milwaukee has seen it firsthand. And the bullpen has found its October form: it slammed the door on Atlanta, with Edwin Díaz looking like himself again.
Vegas has the Dodgers at -160 and the Brewers at +130. That’s fair, but close isn’t the same as even.
The bigger picture
Tampa Bay is waiting in the ALCS for the winner of White Sox-Guardians. Whoever survives the American League will be an underdog in the World Series. The Dodgers are trying to win their third straight title, which nobody has done in more than 25 years. Four wins over Milwaukee, then four more. I wouldn’t bet against them, and I’m not going to.
The picks:
NLCS: Dodgers -160. For the bigger payday, I’m going back to the well: Dodgers in 6 at +400.
World Series: Dodgers. Three-peat.
Game 1 is Sunday at 7 p.m. Central on FOX.
Playoff record: 1-0
Jeremy Durham is a Contributing Sports Columnist for TriStar Daily. He wrote politics and sports for the Daily Beacon while at UT.
