Dodgers 3-Peat Chances Bleak, Fall 0-3 Against Brewers in NLCS
The Dodgers' chances to become the first 3-peat champion in National League history is coming to a close.
After a 0-2 start in Milwaukee that featured both a Tarik Skubal and Yoshinobu Yamamoto loss, the Dodgers returned home for Game 3, giving the start to Blake Snell in hopes of closing the gap on a series looking for a momentum switch in Los Angeles.
And it all certainly seemed to be heading that direction, until it wasn’t.
Blake Snell gave up a first-pitch leadoff home run to Milwaukee’s Jackson Chourio, but settled into a groove where he retired the next 18 of 20 batters.
And a Dodger rally in the 6th inning gave LA its first lead of the night, after Will Smith’s 2-run double off Abner Uribe made it a 2-1 LA score.
Then the 7th inning started: the inning that became a nightmare for Snell and the Dodgers.
Snell walked the leadoff hitter Andrew Vaughn, passing the baton to Jake Bauers as the go-ahead run. Bauers, who notably worked a 12-pitch walk against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2, which eventually led to a rare Yamamoto exit in the 3rd inning, worked the count to 11 pitches against Snell.
And on the 11th pitch of the at-bat, Bauers clobbered a home run into the right field bleachers to give Milwaukee a 3-2 lead.
A gut-wrenching punch to the 50,708 in attendance at Chavez Ravine.
The bleeding, however, did not stop there.
Snell was left in to face the next batter, Garrett Mitchell, who followed in Bauer’s footsteps, hitting a home run to right-center field to make it back-to-back home runs and extending the Brewers' lead to 4-2.
Snell hadn’t allowed a home run all season. And in a game that the Dodgers desperately needed to win, the Brewers slugged back-to-back home runs to end his night, erasing a short-lived Dodger lead.
“His stuff was really good, and I don’t think [to that point] they were seeing him well,” said Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts. “I was trying to get him three more hitters.”
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