Milwaukee beat Los Angeles 6-4 on Thursday, October 15 at Dodger Stadium to sweep the NLCS 4-0 and reach the World Series.
Garrett Mitchell hit the go ahead home run in the sixth inning, and Milwaukee completed its first pennant since 1982 by beating the two time defending champions in their own park.
From Four Runs Down To A Pennant
The sweep did not look likely in the second inning. Shohei Ohtani hit his first home run of the postseason and Los Angeles built a 4-0 lead, the kind of start that usually lets a home crowd settle in and lets a champion close a series out on its own terms. Milwaukee instead treated the deficit as time, not trouble. Jake Bauers drove in two runs with a double in the fourth inning, and in the fifth David Hamilton added an RBI single before Bauers drew a bases loaded walk. By the end of the fifth the game was tied 4-4, and Dodger Stadium had gone from expecting a Game 5 to sensing a sweep.
Mitchell then delivered the swing the series will be remembered for. Facing Tanner Scott in the sixth, he fell behind 0-2, worked the count full and drove a 409 foot home run that put Milwaukee ahead for good. It was a patient at bat inside an impatient moment, and it captured how Milwaukee played the whole series. The Brewers did not need to be the more talented team on paper. They needed to win the at bats that decided innings, and Mitchell won the biggest one of the night after being one strike from sitting down.
David Hamilton added a two out solo home run in the ninth off Edwin Diaz for insurance, and Aaron Ashby pitched the final three scoreless innings for the save. Ashby closing the game himself, rather than Milwaukee cycling through the bullpen to protect a late lead, underlined the trust inside this pitching staff. Three scoreless innings to finish a pennant on the road is not a small assignment, and Ashby handled it without letting Los Angeles build the one big inning it needed.
Bauers Named NLCS Most Valuable Player
Jake Bauers was named NLCS MVP, a fitting choice for a player whose at bats kept changing games. His two run double started the comeback in Game 4 and his bases loaded walk completed the tie an inning later. A day earlier he had hit the go ahead two run home run in Game 3 at the end of an 11 pitch at bat. Milwaukee is not built around one superstar carrying the lineup through October. It is built around a roster where a different player can own a different night, and across this series Bauers owned more of those nights than anyone else in a Brewers uniform.
“We weren’t coming in to play patty-cake. We were hungry, and as long as it’s an even playing field, we’re going to come in and give it our best shot to win. That’s exactly what we did.” Pat Murphy, Milwaukee Brewers manager, published by the Associated Press via WCMU and NBC Sports
That hunger was visible from the opener. Our look back at Milwaukee taking Game 1 by a 2-1 score shows how the bullpen set the tone, and the Game 3 win that pushed Los Angeles to the brink shows how Bauers and Mitchell were already deciding games before the sweep was complete. Game 4 was not a sudden turn. It was the fourth straight night of the same story, with Milwaukee executing a little better in the innings that mattered most.
A 44 Year Wait Ends Against The Champions
Milwaukee reaches the World Series for the first time since 1982. Its only previous appearance was a seven game loss to St. Louis when the franchise played in the American League, which means an entire generation of Brewers fans had known the club only as a regular season story. That changes now. The Brewers also became the first club to complete a postseason sweep after being swept by the same opponent in the previous postseason, after Los Angeles swept Milwaukee in the 2025 NLCS. Revenge is too simple a word for a four game series, but the symmetry is real and the Milwaukee players earned the right to enjoy it.
The other record is stranger and says even more about this team. Milwaukee is the first team to sweep a best of seven series in which it trailed in every game. The Brewers did not front run this series. They fell behind, answered, and kept answering, in Game 1, in Game 3 and most dramatically in Game 4 after trailing 4-0. For Canadian fans following October without the Blue Jays, who finished 79-83 and missed the postseason, this is the pennant story to adopt. A small market club waited 44 years, drew the two time defending champions, trailed in every game and won all four anyway.
By The Numbers
- Final score: Milwaukee Brewers 6, Los Angeles Dodgers 4, NLCS Game 4, October 15
- Series result: Milwaukee wins 4-0, first World Series berth since 1982
- Garrett Mitchell: go ahead 409 foot home run in the sixth inning off Tanner Scott
- Jake Bauers: two run double and a bases loaded walk in Game 4, named NLCS MVP
- Aaron Ashby: final three scoreless innings for the save
- Los Angeles lead: 4-0 in the second inning after Shohei Ohtani first postseason home run
The World Series opens October 23 in Milwaukee, against Cleveland or Tampa Bay from the American League side. Milwaukee will have home field and a week to reset its pitching, which is a very different problem from the one it just solved. For one night in Los Angeles, though, the only problem that mattered was finished. The Brewers trailed by four, tied it by the fifth, led by the sixth and closed it with three scoreless innings. Forty four years of waiting ended in four straight wins.
