MILWAUKEE – Trevor Megill had two outs and still needed one more. Two walks had put the tying run on base, and Mookie Betts sent the next threat toward the center-field warning track. The fly ball stayed in the park. So did Milwaukee’s one-run lead.
The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-1 on Sunday night in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, turning Luis Lara’s fifth-inning RBI single into the winning hit through a bullpen performance that left the defending champions without a run over the final 4⅔ innings.
The margin was familiar. A year earlier, Los Angeles had won the NLCS opener by the same score on its way to sweeping Milwaukee. This time the Brewers secured the last out, ended a seven-game postseason losing streak against the Dodgers and took a 1-0 series lead. The Associated Press reported through NBC News that Milwaukee had not beaten Los Angeles in those seven consecutive playoff meetings.
The deciding run required neither a home run nor a string of extra-base hits. Garrett Mitchell opened the fifth with a walk against Tarik Skubal. Rookie Cooper Pratt moved him into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt, and Lara grounded a single into center field to bring Mitchell home. The Brewers later loaded the bases, but Skubal retired William Contreras on a fly to right and kept the deficit at one.
That was enough for Milwaukee because its relief pitchers made it enough. DL Hall, Abner Uribe, Aaron Ashby and Megill allowed only two hits after starter Jacob Misiorowski left in the fifth, according to AP. Each inherited a different part of the problem: traffic on the bases, the middle of the Dodgers’ order, or the final three outs with no cushion.
Hall’s first assignment was immediate. He entered with a runner aboard and got Freddie Freeman to ground into a double play. The out ended a Dodgers opportunity and brought the crowd of 42,617 back behind a pitching staff that had spent much of the early game working under pressure. Hall received the win.
Ashby then supplied two scoreless innings without allowing a hit. In the eighth, he retired Freeman, walked Will Smith, and got Shohei Ohtani to pop out before Teoscar Hernández grounded to third. FOX Sports’ game account recorded one walk across Ashby’s two innings. The tying run never moved beyond first in the eighth.
The bullpen’s workload began earlier than Milwaukee would have preferred. Jacob Misiorowski allowed one run in 4⅓ innings, but Los Angeles forced him to throw 95 pitches, FOX Sports reported. His second inning alone required 35 pitches, according to AP. The Dodgers could not turn that pressure into a larger lead.
Pages singled home Ohtani in the second to put Los Angeles ahead. Kyle Tucker later worked a 10-pitch walk, fouling off four pitches as the Dodgers loaded the bases. Misiorowski escaped when Kiké Hernández grounded into an inning-ending double play. That kept Milwaukee close enough for one swing to reset the game.
Brice Turang delivered that swing leading off the fourth, homering into the home bullpen against Tarik Skubal. Turang had gone 1-for-15 with six strikeouts in last year’s NLCS, AP reported. His second career postseason homer tied this opener, giving the Brewers an answer before Lara put them ahead an inning later.
For the Dodgers, the opportunities were more numerous than the runs. They grounded into three double plays, stranded nine runners and finished 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position, according to AP. That left them 2-for-22 in those situations during this postseason. The total describes chances wasted, not simply an absence of baserunners.
Megill nearly gave them another opening in the ninth. After recording the first two outs, he walked Tucker and pinch-hitter Josue De Paula. Mookie Betts then flied to the warning track in center. Milwaukee had preserved the lead without ever adding to it, a finish that rewarded the earlier double plays and Uribe’s strikeout as much as the final catch.
The series brings together two clubs that reached 100 regular-season wins: Milwaukee finished 103-59 and Los Angeles 100-62, FOX Sports reported. AP identified it as the first NLCS between 100-win teams since Cincinnati eliminated Philadelphia in 1976. That regular-season strength leaves little reason to treat a one-run opener as a settled verdict.
Los Angeles is pursuing a third consecutive World Series championship. Milwaukee is still pursuing its first. Sunday moved the Brewers closer by one game, but the immediate question is whether they can repeat the pitching performance without needing another long night from the same relievers.
Game 2 is scheduled for Monday at 5 p.m. Eastern in Milwaukee, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto starting for Los Angeles and Logan Henderson for the Brewers. AP reported that Yamamoto is 8-1 with a 2.14 ERA in 11 postseason appearances; Henderson went 2-0 with a 0.75 ERA in two starts against the Dodgers this season.
Those starters offer a different test. The opener belonged to a rookie’s ground-ball single and a bullpen that survived every chance Los Angeles created afterward. Milwaukee has the lead. Whether it can keep winning with so little room for an error remains the question for the rest of the series.
