The Dodgers Have Crawled Out of This Hole Before

The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-4 on Monday and took a 2-0 lead in the National League Championship Series. A crowd of 42,516 at American Family Field watched Los Angeles score first three times and still leave town down two games. The series shifts to Dodger Stadium on Wednesday, Oct. 14.

Clubs that grab a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven have closed it out most of the time, and Milwaukee just did the thing this Dodgers group did to Atlanta in 2020. The Brewers remember that, because they also remember 2018 and last October.

THE BREWERS GO UP 2-0 IN THE NLCS pic.twitter.com/nHqBxRB0ys

— MLB (@MLB) October 13, 2026

Contreras Kept Matching Los Angeles Run for Run

William Contreras, the Brewers’ three-time All-Star catcher, finished 3-for-4 with three RBIs and a 436-foot home run. Every time the Dodgers put a run on the board, he had an answer. The full Game 2 box score shows Los Angeles with three hits and Milwaukee with 12, a gap that opened once the starters were gone.

Mookie Betts walked to start the game, moved up on a groundout and a wild pitch, and scored on Teoscar Hernández’s sacrifice fly off rookie Logan Henderson. Contreras tied it in the bottom of the first with a single to left off Yoshinobu Yamamoto. In the third, Henderson threw away a pickoff with Tommy Edman on third, and Edman scored for a 2-1 Dodgers lead. Milwaukee went back in front before the inning ended.

Los Angeles manufactured two more runs in the fifth on Kyle Tucker’s double, another Henderson throwing error, and Freddie Freeman’s sacrifice fly off Dustin May, the former Dodger now working Milwaukee’s middle innings. That made it 4-3. Contreras tied it again, this time with the solo shot off Kris Bubic. An inning later, after an intentional walk to Brice Turang, he singled home David Hamilton for a 5-4 lead the Dodgers never touched.

“I took it as motivation,” Contreras said. “I wanted to put the ball in play. I knew it was a big run there.” Hamilton scored three times, stole two bases, and kept the bottom of the order in the game. Turang went 2-for-3 with three runs. Christian Yelich, the captain, added two hits and two RBIs. Jackson Chourio went 0-for-5. The Brewers still scored seven.

They have booked 42 come-from-behind wins this season. Monday was another one, sloppy in the field and clean when the game tightened. Henderson lasted four innings, allowed four runs, two earned, and was charged with two errors. May, JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe, and Aaron Ashby finished it.

A 12-Pitch Walk Finally Got Yamamoto

Yamamoto entered as last year’s World Series MVP, 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA in three prior playoff starts after a Dodgers loss. He threw 75 pitches and recorded eight outs. It was the shortest postseason start of his career.

Jake Bauers, 31, in his first season of full-time at-bats, fouled off six pitches after the count ran full and took the 12th pitch in the dirt to load the bases. Yelich lined the next meaningful ball up the middle for two runs and a 3-2 lead. Dave Roberts, the Dodgers manager, pulled Yamamoto after 2 2/3 innings.

He just didn’t have it tonight, which is very rare.

Dave Roberts, Dodgers manager, after Game 2

Brandon Woodruff, the longest-tenured Brewer, is on the injured list and watching every pitch. He has seen the 2018 club lose a Game 7 to these Dodgers and last year’s club get swept. Long at-bats, he said, can leave a pitcher with nowhere to go. “I’ve had a couple, like, 16-pitch ABs, and it’s almost a helpless feeling,” Woodruff said. “I don’t know what to throw.”

Infielder David Hamilton, who joined in February, described the style in plainer terms. Bunt them over, move them, sac fly, get them in. “It kind of feels like college baseball,” he said. Milwaukee won a major-league-best 103 games, three more than the Dodgers’ 100, and still opened this series as the underdog at home. Pat Murphy, the manager since November 2023, keeps a “Win tonight” sign over the dugout tunnel. Monday, they did.

How Often Does a 2-0 Lead Hold in October?

A 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven has held in 79 of 95 best-of-seven series, 83 percent, in a tally built from MLB’s Stats API through the 2026 Division Series. In the LCS since it went to seven games in 1985, the club up 2-0 won 34 of 40 through 2025, 85 percent. Sixteen clubs have still lost from 2-0 in a best-of-seven. Los Angeles is one of them.

LCS RALLIES FROM 0-2

The 2020 version is the one Milwaukee is already citing. Atlanta took Games 1 and 2 at the neutral site, 5-1 and 8-7. Los Angeles then won the series 4-3, including a 4-3 Game 7, and went on to win the World Series. The 2020 NLCS series scores show a club that fell behind 0-2, then 1-3, and still got four wins. That group also had three home-ish dates left, same as these Dodgers now, except those games were in Arlington, Texas, not Chavez Ravine.

Most clubs that rally from 0-2 dropped the first two on the road and then got their home games. That is the Dodgers’ path this week: three straight at Dodger Stadium, then two back in Milwaukee if they get that far. The Brewers’ path is the one history likes more. They won the first two at home. They would host Games 6 and 7. Joey Ortiz, the infielder, still talked as if one out left always leaves a shot. They have seen this opponent refuse to die.

Milwaukee Has Already Lived This October

This is the third Brewers-Dodgers NLCS in eight years, and the first two ended the same way. Murphy said before Game 1 that if the story was going to be incredible, it should go through Los Angeles. His players have the tape.

THE BREWERS’ OCTOBER WITH LOS ANGELES

1. October 20, 2018: Dodgers win Game 7, 5-1, at Miller Park in front of 44,097. Yelich homers in the first. Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig answer. Milwaukee’s last pennant remains 1982.
2. October 13-17, 2025: Dodgers sweep in four games, 2-1, 5-1, 3-1, 5-1. Milwaukee scores four runs in the series, one run a game last October. Shohei Ohtani wins NLCS MVP with three home runs, six scoreless innings, and 10 strikeouts in the Game 4 clincher.
3. October 11, 2026: Brewers take Game 1, 2-1, over Tarik Skubal, the two-time American League Cy Young winner Los Angeles added at the trade deadline.
4. October 12, 2026: Brewers take Game 2, 7-4, chase Yamamoto, and lead the series 2-0.

Woodruff put the mood in one line. “Quite frankly, I think we’re just tired of losing in the playoffs.” Yelich said the group has been confident all year, and that when they play their game they are a hard team to beat. Last October they did not play that game. They managed one run a night against a rotation that has since added Skubal in front of Yamamoto, Blake Snell, and Tyler Glasnow. Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, called that rotation a real strength after the NLDS. Milwaukee just knocked the first two names out before the fifth inning.

The franchise is still chasing its first National League pennant and its first World Series title. The 1982 club, Harvey’s Wallbangers, came back from 0-2 against the California Angels in a best-of-five ALCS, then lost the World Series to St. Louis. That is the last time Milwaukee played in one. If this club closes the Dodgers out, Game 1 of the World Series is set for Oct. 23 at American Family Field.

The Relievers Threw Five Perfect Innings

The Elias Sports Bureau logged a postseason first on Monday: no team’s bullpen had thrown five perfect innings in a single playoff game. May, Romero, Uribe, and Ashby retired the last 15 Dodgers in order. Ashby struck out Miguel Rojas to end a five-out save. Romero got the win with a scoreless sixth that included two strikeouts, one of Ohtani.

MILWAUKEE’S RELIEF LINE, THIS POSTSEASON

• Game 2 finish: Five perfect innings, 15 up and 15 down, seven strikeouts from the four-man chain.
• Postseason ERA: One earned run in 28 2/3 innings, a 0.31 ERA, 13 hits allowed.
• The wins: In the five games Milwaukee has won this October, the bullpen has not allowed a run.
• The staff: May, 1 inning; Romero, 1 inning; Uribe, 1 1/3; Ashby, 1 2/3 and the save.

That unit is why a 5-4 lead in the sixth felt like a 9-4 lead. Los Angeles had already used Alex Vesia, Roki Sasaki, Bubic, Brock Stewart, Tanner Scott, Edgardo Henriquez, and Justin Wrobleski. The eighth inning still leaked two more Milwaukee runs on singles by Turang and Bauers, with an Andy Pages error in center helping the last one around. Henderson’s mess was two hours old by then. The game had become a relief contest, and only one bullpen was still scoring zeroes.

Yelich had said before the series that scoring chances would be scarce, so the ones you get have to be cashed. Game 2 was the first time this postseason Milwaukee led by more than two runs. The extra runs were a luxury. The 15 in a row were the point.

Ohtani Has Not Homered Since August

Ohtani went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts as the designated hitter. He is 1-for-7 in this NLCS and 3-for-20 this postseason, with those three hits all singles. He went 2-for-13 in the NLDS against Atlanta and hit.566 OPS in eight September games while spending much of the month on the injured list. His last home run came on Aug. 18. Injuries have kept him out of the pitching plans that wrecked Milwaukee in Game 4 a year ago.

Will Smith, batting fifth, went 0-for-4. Max Muncy went 0-for-3. The 3-4-5 group did not put a ball in play with any violence. Roberts had already dropped Ohtani to fifth in NLDS Game 3 and talked about walks being enough against Jacob Misiorowski. Misiorowski, 16-5 with a 1.80 ERA, 252 strikeouts, a 0.80 WHIP, and a.157 opponent average in the regular season, beat Skubal in Game 1. The louder problem for Los Angeles is not that the Brewers bunt. It is that the middle of a championship lineup is not forcing anyone to throw strikes.

The rest of the sport has noticed. Milwaukee, with 103 wins and a college-ball offense, is the club a lot of people want in the World Series, especially if the ALCS stays a Guardians-Rays fight. That sentiment does not get the Dodgers a run. Freeman and Hernández drove in runs on sacrifice flies. Edman scored on an error. Once May took the ball, Los Angeles did not put another man on base.

Left-Handers Open the Dodger Stadium Leg

The clubs have Gasser lined up for Game 3 opposite Snell, two left-handers, at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium. Robert Gasser went 5-5 with a 3.87 ERA in the regular season, then posted a 1.67 ERA in his final six starts and worked around defensive lapses in NLDS Game 4 against San Diego. He also owns a 5.91 ERA in two career starts against Los Angeles, a sample Murphy is choosing to ignore. Snell missed time with left groin tightness in mid-September and looked rusty in NLDS Game 2. Extra rest was the point of holding him until the series moved west.

Milwaukee is leaning toward a bullpen game in Game 4, which would keep May in the pen after Monday’s inning. Glasnow is the name on the Dodgers’ side of that night if the rotation stays in order. Yamamoto would then line up for a potential Game 6 on Oct. 18 in Milwaukee on normal rest. That is the start Los Angeles mapped when it held him until Game 2 of this series. It only works if they are still playing.

THE REST OF THE NLCS SLATE

• Game 3: Wednesday, Oct. 14, 8 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium, Gasser vs. Snell.
• Game 4: Thursday, Oct. 15, 9 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium.
• Game 5: Friday, Oct. 16, 9 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium, if necessary.
• Game 6: Sunday, Oct. 18, 8 p.m. ET at American Family Field, if necessary.
• Game 7: Monday, Oct. 19, 8 p.m. ET at American Family Field, if necessary.

Murphy still benches players for mental mistakes and jokes about trading replay challenges for a taser. Henderson gave him two of those mistakes on Monday, and the Brewers won anyway. The Dodgers have three nights in their own park to look like the club that came back from 0-2 six years ago. Milwaukee will show up in the same style it used in Games 1 and 2, and it will treat a 2-0 lead as one more night that still has to be won.