Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The top two seeds in both the National League and American League have all advanced to the Championship Series, with the Brewers and Dodgers facing off in a rematch of the 2025 NLCS. Both sides dispatched their NLDS opponents in four games, with Milwaukee eliminating the San Diego Padres, and the Dodgers eliminating the Atlanta Braves. This sets the stage for the underdog 103-win Brewers to improve upon their 2025 result in which they were swept in four games by the eventual World Series Champion Dodgers. The Tampa Bay Rays have looked great this postseason and in theory you can’t count out the Cleveland Guardians, but regardless of who advances from the American League, either National League side would be favored in the World Series.
Both sides being able to win their series in less than five games means that the entire team will be on full rest, including each of the Game 1 starters, Tarik Skubal and Jacob Misiorowski. I urge you to read Alex’s NLCS preview, as it covers both teams completely, as opposed to just the two specific aces on the mound. I’ll pull some excerpts from it for this thread, but it’s well worth the read.
From the aforementioned NLCS preview:
The Brewers were one of the best offenses in baseball this season, finishing second in runs scored (832), tied for third in OPS (.743) and tied with the Cubs for the best walk rate in baseball (10.6 percent). They were a bit prone to strikeouts (22 percent strikeout rate, the 14th-highest mark in baseball), and while they showed more power than recent years, they still finished tied with the Twins for the 10th-best slugging percentage in baseball. They only hit 154 homers, which was the second-fewest in baseball, but they had the fifth-most doubles and sixth-most triples in baseball.
They were however, worse against left-handed pitching, as outside of Jackson Chourio (165 wRC+), Andrew Vaughn (161), and Jake Bauers (148), the remainder of the lineup was essentially average or worse against southpaws. Those three were monsters against lefties, but the other six bats in the order struggled. Expect Vaughn and Gary Sanchez to get plenty of pinch-hit opportunities throughout this series against the left-handed relievers the Dodgers bring in.
For the Dodgers:
The Dodger lineup as a whole struggled a bit against Atlanta with a .203/.264/.391 slash line and a .655 OPS. As we all predicted, Kyle Tuckerled the Dodgers with five hits in the series. Andy Pages had a tough start to the series going 0-for-7 with three strikeouts and a walk in the first two games, but had two hits in each of the two games in Atlanta and had the game-winning two-run single in the seventh inning on Wednesday. Freddie Freeman went 4-for-15 with two walks in the series but two of his hits left the yard after he did so only once in the final 66 games of the season. Max Muncy went 3-for-12 in the series, but all three of his hits were home runs. Enrique Hernandez only had one hit in the series but it was a big one, as his two-run homer off Chris Sale was all the Dodgers needed in Game 3.
Hyeseong Kim will not be included on the NLCS Roster, with the team figuring that Josue De Paula‘s bat might end up more consequential than the baserunning and defensive versatility that Kim brings. High-leverage relievers Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill have dominated right-handed batters this season, and De Paula’s bat might get opportunities late in game against the toughest pitchers in the Milwaukee bullpen. I personally think a significant part of this series will come down to what Shohei Ohtani can offer at the plate. The two offenses are probably closer to equal if Ohtani remains a shell of himself at the plate, but if he can return to being a legitimate threat, the offense looks much better for the Dodgers.
——
As I’m sure most people know, these are two of the best pitchers in the world. Skubal was coming off of back-to-back American League Cy Young awards entering this season, and if he didn’t get injured earlier in the season he would’ve had a very good shot to be the first pitcher to win more than two in a row since Greg Maddux (1992-95) and Randy Johnson (1999-02).
Meanwhile on the other hand, the 24 year-old Misiorowski is in his second season and will win the National League Cy Young award, it’ll just be a matter if it’s unanimous or not. Here’s how the two aces compare and rank amongst 82 starting pitchers with at least 140 innings.
It’s quite evident why Misiorowski will win the Cy Young, as he leads baseball in nearly every single pitching metric aside from walk rate, which is still a league-average mark. Walking a batter here and there also simply hasn’t mattered when you can strike everyone out and suppress hits better than anyone in the game. He was however not at his best in his start a week ago against the Padres, as he labored through four innings on 88 pitches, allowing two earned runs on four hits and one walk with six strikeouts. He faced the Dodgers back in August and went six innings allowing one run on five hits and one walk.
He averaged 100.6 MPH on his four-seam fastball this season, was sitting at 101.2 against the Padres, and touched 105. Outrageous. Nearly unbelievable arm talent, the likes of which has hardly ever been seen. He throws his fastball roughly 65% of the time which makes sense when you can throw it how he does, but he mixes in a cutter, slider, and a curveball, with only the curveball coming in below 90 MPH.
Here’s how the two Baseball Savant Statcast profiles look like for each of the two starters, with Skubal on the left and Misiorowski on the right.
Skubal on the other hand led baseball in fWAR in the second half of the season with 3.5 fWAR in 83.0 innings, with 62.0 of those coming with the Dodgers. He had a 2.61 ERA and a 2.36 FIP with LA, two of the lowest marks in the league despite the run suppression being slightly worse than he would probably prefer as a whole. Opponents had a .304 batting average on balls in play against him with the Dodgers, compared to .278 with the Tigers and a career mark of .281, which while very marginal, probably explains the 2.61 ERA compared to his usual 2.4 and below.
He faced the Brewers twice this year, once with Detroit and once with the Dodgers, allowing four earned runs in six innings against them back in April, and one earned run against them in six innings in August. He was good against the Braves in Game 1 of the NLDS, going six innings while allowing just one earned run on two hits and two walks with seven strikeouts. The lone run came on a solo shot by Sean Murphy. The sample size is very small, so I’m not sure it really matters much at all, but Skubal has been much better on the road since joining the Dodgers. He’s posted just a 1.04 ERA across four starts and 26.0 innings, with a 1.49 FIP, 0.65 WHIP, and 32 strikeouts to just three walks. Stealing the Misiorowski game in Milwaukee to open the series would be the perfect start to this NLCS, and Skubal gives them as good a chance as anyone. Runs will be hard to come by for both sides, so the sooner the Dodgers can get on the board (or get Misiorowski out of the game), the better.
——
The 26-man for the NLCS is here.
While Chad’s rotation prediction was right, and so was a swingman replacing Kim, it wasn’t Emmet Sheehan.
The only change made to the roster is Justin Wrobleski on for Kim, as the team could use the length out of the bullpen for whatever may happen in a seven-game series. The Brewers have scored nine runs against Wrobleski in eleven innings this season, so it seems likely that Wrobleski might be given the lowest-leverage innings possible.
——
Old friend Mike with some good words about the Game 1 matchup on the mound.
======
First pitch is at 5:00 PT on FOX.
Go underdog Dodgers!
