The Los Angeles Dodgers are in a 3-0 hole in the National League Championship Series after Wednesday night’s brutal 6-2 loss, and honestly, you can feel the air getting sucked out of Dodger Stadium. Twenty-four minutes after the final buzzer, Kiké Hernández, a guy who’s been a fixture of their golden era, sat silently in front of his locker with his face in his hands. He’s still grappling with how a superteam like theirs could be staring at this unforeseen reality.
Superteam Collapsed: What Even Happened?
You’d think a team that’s “experienced and expensive,” “star-studded and steadfast,” with “an assortment of All-Stars and a fusion of fresh faces” would be invincible, right? Wrong. The defending back-to-back champions sure don’t look that way anymore. Hernández himself admitted it: “We didn’t expect to be in this position. This one sucks.” A year ago, the Dodgers swept the Brewers in the NLCS. Now, Milwaukee is one win away from returning the favor, and they aren’t just playing small ball. They’ve dominated in every single facet of the game.
Over three games, the Brewers are hitting .281 with five home runs and 15 runs scored. Meanwhile, the Dodgers are batting a measly .165 with zero homers and only seven runs. Max Muncy, never one to mince words, summed it up perfectly after the game: “It’s a pretty simple answer. We’re playing like s—. They’re playing great. It’s as simple as that.” Hard to argue with that when Milwaukee’s bullpen is rocking a 3-0 record with a 1.32 ERA in the series.
Cy Young Winners Are No Match For This Brewers’ Buzzsaw
The Brewers haven’t just been good, they’ve been an absolute buzzsaw against the Dodgers’ best. They beat Tarik Skubal, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, in Game 1. Then they just blitzed Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the reigning World Series MVP, in Game 2. As if that wasn’t enough, in Game 3, which was back in Los Angeles where the Dodgers had a 51-30 record this season, the Brewers went nuclear. They launched three home runs against two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell. Get this: Snell had not allowed a single homer all season until that night. Three homers! Against a guy who hadn’t given one up all year. That’s how desperate things got for the Dodgers’ dream of a three-peat.
At the start of the year, Muncy said they set out to do something historic. Now, it looks like they’re going to have to “make a little more history along the way” just to survive. No team has won three straight World Series championships since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees. And no National League team has ever pulled off the feat. If the Dodgers want to be the first, they have to dig out of a hole only one MLB team has ever survived in a best-of-seven series. That was the 2004 Boston Red Sox, who stormed back against the Yankees in the ALCS, sparked by Dave Roberts’ iconic steal. Game 4 is next, and the Dodgers’ entire season is on the line.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Fox Sports.
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