Brewers Sweep the Dodgers and End a 44-Year Wait

The Milwaukee Brewers finished a four-game NLCS sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday, winning 6-4 to reach their first World Series since 1982. Garrett Mitchell’s leadoff homer in the sixth broke a 4-4 tie at Dodger Stadium after Shohei Ohtani’s three-run shot had made it 4-0 in the second.

The win gave Milwaukee its first National League pennant and closed Los Angeles’s chase of a third straight championship. The Brewers, who had never won an NL flag, are now one series from the title the franchise has never claimed.

Milwaukee Completes the Reverse Sweep

A year after the Dodgers swept them out of this same round, the Brewers swept Los Angeles in four games, October 11 through 15. MLB says no club had ever been swept in the postseason, come back the next year, and swept that same opponent. Milwaukee did it in the ballpark where the last one ended, 363 days later.

The Dodgers led at some point in every game. Milwaukee answered every time. The Brewers became the first team to open a postseason with six comeback wins in its first eight games, and Thursday’s four-run rally tied the largest deficit ever erased to clinch a League Championship Series, matching the 2000 and 2003 Yankees.

NLCS GAME BY GAME

Series attendance was 184,945, an average of 46,236. Milwaukee outscored Los Angeles 21-11 and outhomered the Dodgers 7-1. Brice Turang’s solo shot tied Game 1. William Contreras went 3-for-4 with a homer and three RBI in Game 2, when the Brewers bullpen threw five perfect innings, the most by a relief corps in a single postseason game. Jackson Chourio led off Game 3 with a first-pitch homer. Mitchell and David Hamilton went deep in the clincher.

Game 1 also snapped a seven-game playoff losing streak against Los Angeles and was Milwaukee’s first postseason win over the Dodgers since Game 6 of the 2018 NLCS. The clubs had met three times in October before this week (2018, a 2020 Wild Card, and 2025), and Los Angeles had won all three.

The Three-Peat Dies in Four Games

The Dodgers came in as two-time defending champions, winners in 2024 over the Yankees and in 2025 over the Blue Jays, and as the first club to repeat since New York in 1998-2000. A third title would have been the first time a National League team won three straight World Series titles. Only two franchises have ever done it, and both are American League clubs.

THE CLUBS THAT WON THREE IN A ROW

• Yankees, 1998-2000: Three straight, the last three-peat in the sport, including sweeps of the Padres and Braves.
• Athletics, 1972-74: The only other franchise with at least three in a row, the last of them a 4-1 win over these Dodgers.
• Yankees, 1949-53: Five straight, the longest championship run in World Series history.
• Yankees, 1936-39: Four straight, Lou Gehrig’s last titles and Joe DiMaggio’s first four seasons.

Fifteen teams have gone back-to-back since 1903. There was a new champion every year from 2001 through 2024, until Los Angeles broke that streak. The 2026 Dodgers, at 100-62 with a 14th straight postseason trip, were the next test. They never got a Game 5. Starter Tarik Skubal, lined up for that game, said he had no doubt they would get there. “But baseball, it’s hard to win. And that team played really well,” he said.

They may have a bunch of Hall of Famers, but we got a bunch of gamers. And the gamers won this week.

Pat Murphy, Brewers manager, NLCS trophy presentation

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts did not dress it up. “We got outplayed in all facets,” he said. “Those guys played flawless, defensively, they pitched better than we did, they hit better than we did, they slugged more than we did. You’ve got to sometimes just tip your cap.”

A $146 Million Roster Beat the $339 Million One

Spotrac’s 2026 payroll allocations put Los Angeles at a $339.3 million payroll, second in the majors behind the Mets. Milwaukee sat 19th at $146.2 million, about 43 percent of the Dodgers’ figure, and still took the series in four. The Brewers won a franchise-record 103 games (103-59) in the regular season, earned home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, and then beat the Padres 3-1 in the NLDS before this sweep, finishing the National League bracket 7-1.

THE OCTOBER GAP

• Regular season: Milwaukee 103-59, Los Angeles 100-62, the first postseason series between two 100-win teams since the 2021 NLDS.
• NLCS homers: Brewers 7, Dodgers 1, Ohtani’s three-run drive the only Los Angeles ball that left the yard.
• Bullpen in the clincher: JoJo Romero threw two scoreless innings, and Aaron Ashby finished the last nine outs for a three-inning save.
• Comebacks: Milwaukee trailed in all four NLCS games and in six of its first eight postseason games, and won all six of those.

Left-hander Ashby, who stranded the tying run in the seventh and again in the eighth on Thursday, put the year in one line. “We were playing with that chip on our shoulder,” he said. “I would die for any of these dudes, man.” Murphy had said before the series that Milwaukee could not keep being Los Angeles’s whipping boy. The Dodgers had knocked the Brewers out in 2018 (in seven games), in 2020, and in last year’s sweep. This group did not wait for a fifth meeting.

The style was the same one that produced 103 wins. After Ohtani’s 428-foot homer, his first since August 18, Milwaukee did not answer with a flurry of long balls. William Contreras and Jake Bauers hit back-to-back ground-rule doubles in the fourth. The fifth inning was five walks and two stolen bases, Hamilton’s single, and Bauers’s bases-loaded walk that tied it at 4-4. Then Mitchell, who had 26 homers in the regular season after never hitting more than 12 in a year, turned an 0-2 count into a 409-foot drive off Tanner Scott, the first homer of his career in that count. Hamilton added a solo shot off Edwin Diaz in the ninth. Jackson Chourio ended it with a leaping catch on Enrique Hernandez.

Jake Bauers Turns a Near-Quit Into an MVP

Bauers, 31, a Newport Beach, California, native who nearly left the game, was named NLCS MVP. He went 4-for-14 with a homer, a double, three walks, and six RBI. He is the first Brewer to win the award. In 1982, when Milwaukee last reached this stage, the ALCS MVP went to Fred Lynn of the beaten Angels.

The hits were the ones that turned games. In Game 2 he worked a 12-pitch walk that helped chase Yoshinobu Yamamoto after 2 2/3 innings, the shortest postseason start of Yamamoto’s career. In Game 3 he saw 11 pitches from Blake Snell, then hit a two-run homer that turned a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead; Mitchell homered on the next batter. In Game 4 the ground-rule double cut 4-0 to 4-2, and the bases-loaded walk tied it. “That’s a special one. I’ll never forget that,” he said of the Snell at-bat, the moment he picked as the series’ best.

During the regular season he hit.266 with 26 homers and 86 RBI in 144 games, part of the year on a fractured toe and shin splints. After the clincher he waved off the trophy. “It doesn’t mean a whole lot, because to me, this belongs to all these guys. We did this together,” he said. He also said there was never a doubt in the dugout, and that once the game was tied, “this definitely feels like a movie.”

Murphy, who calls the group special and together, had a simpler read on the week. The Hall of Famers were on the other side. The Brewers were still standing.

Five Clubs Still Have Never Won It All

MLB lists five teams have yet to win a World Series: the Brewers, San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies, Seattle Mariners, and Tampa Bay Rays. Milwaukee just left the smaller list of clubs without a pennant. The bigger list is the one that still has its name on it. A title next week would take it off. A Rays pennant would put two of those five in the same World Series.

CLUBS WITHOUT A WORLD SERIES TITLE

The Padres are the oldest club on the list. The Mariners are the only one that has never even reached the Series. The Guardians, who still have a chance to meet Milwaukee, are not on it; they last won in 1948, which is its own kind of wait.

THE ROAD BACK TO OCTOBER

1. 1982: Milwaukee, then an American League club, loses the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games.
2. 2018: The Brewers take the Dodgers to Game 7 of the NLCS and lose, 4-3.
3. 2025: Los Angeles sweeps Milwaukee in the NLCS and wins a second straight title.
4. October 15, 2026: Milwaukee sweeps the Dodgers in four and wins its first National League pennant.

The 1982 club is still the standard in town, Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Cecil Cooper, and a seven-game loss that never got a sequel. Forty-four years is long enough that people who were infants for that Series are bringing their own kids now. The next opponent will be whichever American League club survives a series that is already tighter than this one was.

American Family Field Hosts a World Series at Last

Game 1 is Friday, October 23, at American Family Field, the first Fall Classic game the building has ever held. Milwaukee has a full week off. The American League Championship Series is still live. The Cleveland Guardians lead the Tampa Bay Rays 2-1 after the Guardians’ 3-2 win in Game 3 on October 15 at Progressive Field, where Petey Halpin hit a go-ahead two-run homer. Game 4 is October 16 in Cleveland. Tampa Bay was 98-64 in the regular season; Cleveland was 85-77.

Either visitor would fit the month. The Rays have never won a title. The Guardians have not won one since 1948. The last two teams standing in the National League already proved that a top payroll is not a November ticket: the Dodgers are going home, and the Brewers are flying back with the pennant. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers put the state’s view on the series in one line after the final out.

🧹 🧹 🧹 🧹

OUR CREW IS GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES! https://t.co/vv5dKBFGKe

— Governor Tony Evers (@GovEvers) October 16, 2026

Chourio caught the last ball a step short of the warning track, smiled, and kept running. The Brewers met at the mound, then at a podium in center field, then in a visiting clubhouse, and then on a plane to Milwaukee. For the first time since 1982, the World Series is going there next week.

Frequently Asked Questions

When Did the Brewers Last Reach the World Series?

In 1982, as an American League club known that year as Harvey’s Wallbangers, Milwaukee lost to the Cardinals in seven games. The MVP of that ALCS was not a Brewer; Fred Lynn of the defeated Angels won it. The 2026 pennant is the franchise’s first in the National League.

Have the Milwaukee Brewers Ever Won a World Series?

No. The franchise began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, moved to Milwaukee in 1970, and is one of five clubs without a title, with the Padres, Rockies, Mariners, and Rays. The Padres (1969) are the oldest of those five; the Mariners are the only one that has never appeared in the Series.

Who Won NLCS MVP for the 2026 Brewers?

First baseman Jake Bauers, who went 4-for-14 with six RBI and is the first Brewer to win League Championship Series MVP. The award turns on three plate appearances: a 12-pitch walk against Yamamoto in Game 2, an 11-pitch homer against Snell in Game 3, and the double and bases-loaded walk that erased a 4-0 hole in Game 4.

Has a National League Team Ever Won Three Straight World Series Titles?

No. The only three-peats belong to the Yankees (1998-2000, plus longer runs in 1936-39 and 1949-53) and the Athletics (1972-74). Fifteen teams have gone back-to-back since 1903, and the sport crowned a new champion every year from 2001 through 2024 before the Dodgers repeated. Their 2026 bid ended in the NLCS.