The NLCS begins Monday in Milwaukee. This season LA was 0-6 against the Brewers. All of those games were in July, prior to and just after the All-Star break. They lost 3 of those games by 1 run, two by 2 runs and were blown out in the other.
In their history, LA is 96-71 against the Brewers. They are 6-3 all time in the post season. They won both of those series. They are 40-33 at American Family Field and 48-36 at Dodger Stadium. The team they faced in July is not the same one they are facing in this series. James Outman was playing CF in their very first game on July 7th. Conforto was hitting .178 and Mookie had not started being Mookie. Julian Fernandez and Lou Trevino were in the bullpen that first series as was Kirby Yates. Teo was out with hammy issues and Ruiz was on the roster.
Tommy Edman was still battling ankle problems and was not at full strength and played for the first time in a while when they resumed their season series on the 18th of July. Mookie was just above .240 at the time. Even so those three games were close. LA lost by 2, 1 and 1. The bullpen at the time was in disarray, Yates and Scott were ineffective at times. The bullpen is much stronger now. The starting staff is healthy and has pitched extremely well so far this postseason.
The Brewers were the Best in baseball but still won just 4 more games than the Dodgers. This series is evenly matched. LA needs to steal one on the road, where they have not been great this year. They took two in Philadelphia which is a hard place to play and win. They are 5-1 so far in the post season. Brewers are 3-2. Snell most likely gets the start in game one. Milwaukee has not seen him this season. Snell has faced Milwaukee three times in his career. He is 1-2.
I think the series will go at least six, and probably seven games. Doubt either team sweeps.
Born June 14th, 1948, in Los Angeles California. AKA The Bear
Not sure when they will announce the rosters. But I do not think they will carry three catchers. Doc also announced they would carry 12 pitchers plus Ohtani. One more than in the LDS.
No Conforto. YAY!!
Nope, but also like carrying just 25 because I doubt Dean even gets an AB.
Thanks for the preview, Bear.
Anytime Phil.
I am predicting that we take two in Milwaukee and finish it back in L A. We are at full strength and playing well while the Brewers were playing their best when we played them in the regular season and we were sucking. Freddy and Shohei will contribute more to the offense. Our starters will shut them down and Roki will be the series MVP.
I love it
Blake Snell will start game 1 tomorrow.
blake
And Roki will finish it!
Kershaw = mop up/extras arm
Manfred would love to see expansion and then realignment before he leaves the post of commissioner.
Surprised the Mariners won that game on the road in Toronto.
Mariners are stacked with quality post season pitching. They have quality offensive players. No surprise they have an outstanding team who just hasn’t done it in the postseason yet.
Now that Smith has shown he can play a full game, Rushing has been dropped from the NLCS roster.
Casparius has been added. It probably came down to Henriquez or Casparius and I think Casp is the right choice, although I might have added both and dropped Dean or Kim.
Shildt, with two years left on his contract in SD, has announced his retirement. Supposedly his decision.
There are now 8 managerial vacancies, plus the Rangers who have already hired Schumaker.
STB, there are reports Shildt hung it up due to health concerns. I hope he’s okay. No ill will when it comes to health problems.
If I skippered that ship, I know I’d have mental health issues, namely:
Tatisis and MegaMachado.
Amazing how unpredictable the baseball playoffs are. Pregame, the analysts all agreed that the Mariners really had no chance game 0ne with the Jays.
The Jays are on fire and the M’s played 15 innings in the previous 48 hours burning through 3 starting pitchers and their entire bullpen to advance.
It was almost a forgone conclusion that they would lose game one and regroup their pitching.
Well, guess what Bryce Miller pitches the game of his life. It looked like a blowout was in store after George Springer hit a lead-off homer. Miller than was awesome going 6 innings giving up only one more hit. Their usual cast of relievers, Spier, Brash and Munoz completely shut down the hot Jays giving up nothing but Goose Eggs.
Go Figure.
Cal Raleigh hit another dinger and the M’s showed no effects from the 15 inning game. And the Mariners pulled this off against the “contact” Jays who only struck out 4 times.
If they can get Woo back for some innings, the M’s might be up to the task of making their first ever World Series appearance.
I’d love to see the Dodgers and M’s, advance.
To quote Yogi, you could sum the game up in a word – youneverknow
I can’t in any way back this up with facts, but my feeling is that when a team has a long flight and arrives late to their next city or is sleep deprived, etc., they often win that game but lose the next one.
Therefore, I predict the Jays win tonight.
Yes, Adrenaline can provide the energy to overcome the 15 innings, flight, jet leg etc and it can catch up the next game.
I have no facts on that either but we’ll see.
If the M’s could have put the ball in play more often with RISP last night it would have been a blowout. They strike out a lot but have still been successful. Kind of like our Dodgers…
Yup the “contact” teams in the playoffs are the Brewers and Jays. The Jays only struck out 4 times last night. Bad aim and good defense.
The M’s had 11 K’s but their approach is much like the Dodgers. Hit it out of the park. They were 3rd in MLB for homers with 230 behind only the Dodgers with 232 and the Yankees with 263.
That pitcher for Seattle threw over 30 pitches in the first inning, despite only giving up the 1 run, so I thought wow, Seattle may have to use 5 pitchers tonight.
Instead, somehow, he was at 50 pitches thru 4, and really did save his bullpen. Part of that credit/blame needs to go to Toronto for not making Seattle pitchers work.
That 15 inning game could have hurt Seattle, if Toronto let it. Instead, they swung at everything and couldn’t get hits.
Who was the left fielder you were interested in a few years ago. I think his last name was Lewis.
Not to poach on Bobby’s question, Bum, but are you talking about Kyle Lewis? He was a first rounder in 2016 for the Mariners.
Kyle Lewis’s baseball career was significantly derailed by multiple major injuries, including a serious knee injury early in his career and a concussion in 2022. After winning American League Rookie of the Year in 2020, his performance declined, and he was traded from the Seattle Mariners to the Arizona Diamondbacks. After being non-tendered by the Diamondbacks, he was not picked up by another team and has not played in MLB since 2023
I pretty sure it was. STB and I were looking for a left fielder right after Lewis’ rookie year. At the time he was not going to be traded.
I wonder if he is healthy enough now to warrant a spring training invite.
There sure seems to be a lot of negativity with a player who is not even on the roster; Michael Conforto. I am totally indifferent on Conforto. Not being on the roster is not an issue with me. If he were on the roster, he certainly could not do worse than Andy Pages. Since the Cincinnati Series August 25, Conforto has not been a bad player.
· 86 PA – .270/.360/.419/.779, 3 HR, 11 BB, 26 K
Andy Pages over the same period:
· 112 PA – .278/.295/.500/.795, 6 HR, 2 BB, 27 K
Going into the playoffs, a total lack of plate discipline is not healthy. And that lack of plate discipline has continued on steroids in the playoffs. For the 2025 playoffs, Pages is 1-24 (single). 25 PA – .042/.080/.042/.122, with 0 BB, and 1 HBP.
For Pages’ last 2 years in the playoffs and 45 PA – .116/.156/.256/.411, 12 K, 0 BB, 2 HBP. He had one good game, Game 5 NLCS vs NYM, going 3-4 with 2 HRs. In his other playoff games, Pages is 2-39. He was left off the 2024 WS roster.
If I was making out the lineup, October Kiké would start in CF and Alex Call would start in LF.
If you want to rip at Conforto, okay. But Pages deserves a lot of criticism as well. I would never throw him a strike. He will swing anyway. 0 BB in his playoff career.
And on cue he swings at ball 4.
Ohtani and Pages are quite the playoffs L/R 1, 2 punch. Or is it the 1, 2, 3 punch(out)
Pages has sucked rocks this postseason. His at bats have been painful to watch. He is frippen pull happy and it shows.
I thought it was sand
Never seen that before. A double play on a ball off the wall. The umpire was signaling safe. Dodgers runners f’d it up.
Horrible base running by Teo. How is he not on third tagging up.
WTH was Teo doing. Caught or not he has to tag and score.
The runner at second just stayed there too. Nobody out there knew what had happened. No excuse for a play like that. Embarrassing.
Defense keeping Brewers in this game!
And our horrible baserunning!
The LF umpire clearly called no catch on the fly ball. Smith ran back to second and told Edman to go back to 1st. I have no idea what Smith was looking at. Dino Ebel told Teoscar to go. It wasn’t the coaches or the umpires. The players totally screwed up.
No one is looking at an umpire 100 feet away from the play. Smith couldn’t/didn’t see if the ball glanced off the wall so it looked like a catch. Same with Teo except he should have been tagging up from the get go. Ebel should have done more.
100%
Yep. They sure did.
How was that scored? DP 8-2 @5U? Whatever, has it ever been entered into a scorebook?
DP 8-2UA
Teoscar is not only a poor defender, he is poor baserunner. As a runner at third in that situation, you go back to tag up and leave as soon as the outfielder touches the ball. If he is doing that, there is no way that he would be thrown out at home.
Unacceptable. A complete brain fart.
Wake up bats!
….:and Pages needs to start going oppo. He’s trying to pull everything.
Let’s hope Doc doesn’t pull a Kevin Cash and take Snell out. His pitch count is in good shape.
One of the greatest all time Dodger playoff pitching performances!
Yes
The only take-away
(Other than we need to score sone MF rubs)
Well, we tried to give it away!
Snell was outstanding.
Sandy Koufax, 1965 World Series Game 5 (9 IP, 10 K)
Sandy Koufax, 1965 World Series Game 7 (9 IP, 10 K)
Clayton Kershaw, 2020 wild card series Game 2 (8 IP, 13 K)
Blake Snell, 2025 NLCS Game 1 (8 IP, 10 K)
You can bet the house Doc will discuss baserunning and watching your coach’s pre-game today. Win tonight, head home up 2-0. Doc should have let Dean bat. He could not have done worse than Call’s pop out.