Brewers Sweep the Dodgers and Now Host the Rays

The Milwaukee Brewers swept the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-0 in the NLCS on Oct. 15 and will host the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series on Friday. It is Milwaukee’s first National League pennant and first Fall Classic trip since 1982. One of these two clubs will leave baseball’s never-won group, which still has five names on it.

Los Angeles, chasing a third straight title, is already out. The 103-59 Brewers, who beat the Padres 3-1 in the NLDS, are 7-1 through the National League bracket and now sit eight days between their clincher and Game 1 at American Family Field.

Milwaukee Paid Last October Back in Four Games

A year ago the Dodgers swept these Brewers and went on to another championship. On Thursday night at Dodger Stadium, Jackson Chourio squeezed Enrique Hernandez’s fly ball a step shy of the left-center warning track, smiled, and kept running. The dugout, the bullpen and the infield met at the mound. Milwaukee had a pennant. Los Angeles did not have a three-peat.

Pat Murphy’s club did not sneak in. It won 2-1, 7-4, 6-2 and 6-4, and it outhomered the Dodgers 7-1 across the four games. Dave Roberts, the Dodgers’ manager, said his team got outplayed in every part of the game, including slugging. Shohei Ohtani’s 428-foot three-run homer in Game 4, his first since Aug. 18, lasted about an inning as a turning point. Then Milwaukee did what it did all October. It answered.

Three times in the last decade Los Angeles had thrown the Brewers out of the postseason. Aaron Ashby, who recorded the last nine outs of Game 4, said the club played with that chip. “I would die for any of these dudes, man,” Ashby said.

The First Reverse Sweep in Postseason History

League records show no previous club was swept in a postseason series, came back the next year, and swept the same opponent. Milwaukee became the first team in MLB history to return the favor. The 4-0 hole in the second inning of Game 4 even tied the largest deficit a team has erased to clinch a League Championship Series, matching the Yankees in 2000 and 2003.

The Brewers also opened this postseason with six comeback wins in their first eight games. That is the identity Murphy has been selling, walks and steals and long at-bats, until a homer is required. Game 4 needed both. William Contreras and Jake Bauers hit back-to-back doubles in the fourth. David Hamilton singled and Bauers walked with the bases loaded in the fifth. Garrett Mitchell led off the sixth by taking Tanner Scott deep. Hamilton added a solo shot off Edwin Diaz in the ninth.

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

Pat Murphy, Brewers manager, NLCS trophy presentation

The league’s own account put the unique reverse sweep in one line, and the clip is the shortest version of what changed from last October.

The Brewers become the FIRST team to be swept out of the Postseason one year, only to SWEEP the SAME team in the following Postseason 🤯 pic.twitter.com/hZeboMtEWy

— MLB (@MLB) October 16, 2026

Jake Bauers, Six RBIs and the First LCS MVP

Bauers, 31, went 4-for-14 with a homer and a team-high six RBIs and became the first Brewers player to win an LCS MVP award. When Milwaukee took the 1982 American League pennant, the honor went to Fred Lynn of the losing Angels. Bauers had a hit in all four games. Those six RBIs tied the franchise mark for a postseason series, shared with Jackson Chourio (2026 and 2025 NLDS), Ryan Braun (2011 NLCS), and Cecil Cooper and Robin Yount (1982 World Series).

The at-bats were long on purpose. In Game 2 he drew a 12-pitch walk from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a plate appearance that ran 7 minutes and 4 seconds, and Christian Yelich followed with a two-run single that ended Yamamoto’s night in a 7-4 win. In Game 3 he saw 11 pitches from Blake Snell and hit a go-ahead two-run homer; Mitchell went back-to-back. Bauers said after the clincher that he just wanted to be part of something, and that is what he got.

He hit.266 with 26 home runs, 86 RBIs, a.389 on-base percentage and an.874 OPS in the regular season, a career year on his fifth major league club. Two years ago he nearly quit. Murphy teased that Bauers played with a broken toe and shin splints. Yelich called him a huge part of the team. The next problem for Bauers is personal in a smaller way. He debuted with Tampa Bay in 2018. That is who is coming to Milwaukee.

Four Games, 21 Runs, One Pennant

The series never reached the starters Los Angeles was saving. Tarik Skubal said he had no doubt the Dodgers would get to a Game 5 so Yamamoto could take Game 6. They never got there. JoJo Romero threw two scoreless innings in the clincher. Ashby stranded the tying run in the seventh and again in the eighth, then finished a three-inning save.

NLCS SCORES

Mitchell’s homers in Games 3 and 4, Chourio’s first-pitch shot in Game 3, and Hamilton’s ninth-inning insurance made the power spike visible. For a club that lived on traffic, the ball left the park when the series asked it to.

Who Comes Off Baseball’s Never-Won List?

Twenty-five of 30 clubs have won a World Series. MLB still lists five clubs still without a World Series title, and two of them will play starting Friday. The loser stays on the board with the three that are already done for the year. The Mariners remain the only franchise that has never even reached a World Series, after a Game 7 ALCS loss to Toronto in 2025.

CLUBS WITH NO WORLD SERIES TITLE

San Diego, Seattle and Colorado gain nothing from this matchup. Milwaukee or Tampa Bay will. That is the stake the Dodgers’ exit created, once the Rays finished Cleveland on Monday.

Harvey’s Wallbangers Waited 44 Years for This

The 1982 Brewers, still an American League club, won the AL East, rallied from 0-2 down on the California Angels in a best-of-five ALCS, and then lost the World Series 4-3 to St. Louis. Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and Cecil Cooper never got a second trip. The franchise moved to the National League in 1998. Until this month it was the only one of the 15 current NL clubs without a pennant.

THE PATH BACK TO THE SERIES

1. 1982: The 1982 club’s 95-67-1 regular season ends in a seven-game World Series loss to the Cardinals.
2. 1998: Milwaukee switches leagues. The old AL pennant stays the franchise’s only flag.
3. 2018: The Brewers take the Dodgers to NLCS Game 7 and lose.
4. 2025: Los Angeles sweeps Milwaukee in the NLCS on the way to a second straight title.
5. Oct. 15, 2026: Milwaukee completes the 4-0 reverse sweep and wins its first NL pennant.

County Stadium is gone. American Family Field has never hosted a World Series game. The 44-year gap is the longest wait of Murphy’s players’ lives, and for a large share of the people who will be in those seats on Friday it is the first Brewers pennant they have seen.

Friday Brings the Rays to American Family Field

Tampa Bay beat the Guardians 4-2 in the ALCS, closing it 7-3 on Oct. 19 at Tropicana Field, 18 years to the day after the 2008 club first reached a World Series. Freddy Peralta was named ALCS MVP. Junior Caminero hit a two-run homer off the left-field foul pole in Game 6. Yandy Diaz, the last remaining player from the 2020 pennant club, went deep later and said he hoped this time it would be theirs.

Kevin Cash heard Murphy’s line and sent it back. He said the Rays might not have Hall of Famers in that room yet, “but I can assure you we have a lot of gamers, and we’re excited to get up there to Milwaukee.” Tampa Bay lost the 2008 Series to Philadelphia in five games and the 2020 Series to these same Dodgers in six. This is a third try, against a club that has one try on the books and a loss in seven.

HOW GAME 4 TURNED

• Second inning: Andy Pages singles in a run, then Ohtani hits a 428-foot three-run homer off Dustin May for a 4-0 Dodgers lead.
• Fourth inning: Contreras and Bauers hit back-to-back doubles, and the deficit is 4-2.
• Fifth inning: Hamilton’s RBI single and Bauers’ bases-loaded walk tie it at 4-4.
• Sixth inning: Mitchell homers off Scott, and Milwaukee leads for good.
• Ninth inning: Hamilton homers off Diaz; Chourio’s catch ends it 6-4.

The 122nd World Series opens Friday, Oct. 23, at 8 p.m. ET at American Family Field, with Game 2 there on Saturday. Games 3 through 5, if needed, are at Tropicana Field on Oct. 26, 27 and 28. Games 6 and 7 would return to Milwaukee on Oct. 30 and 31. Milwaukee will have been off eight days. Tampa Bay will have had three. Someone in that pairing is going to win the franchise’s first title, and three other clubs will watch it happen from home.