Editor’s note: This is the Monday, Sept. 28 edition of the Inside the Dodgers newsletter from reporter J.P. Hoornstra. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.
We shouldn’t take for granted that the Dodgers qualified for the playoffs in 2020. It’s a minor miracle that there are playoffs, and that there was a 2020 regular season at all. “Any day between now and Sept. 27 could be the tipping point for something catastrophic – a death, a team-wide outbreak – that renders the season unplayable,” I wrote back on July 18. Today is Sept. 28. Congrats, baseball. You made it.
The Dodgers made it as the No. 1 seed in an eight-team National League playoff field. The Milwaukee Brewers claimed the final seed with a 29-31 record thanks to the unique tiebreaker criteria that put them ahead of the 29-31 Giants. The Dodgers will host the Brewers in a best-of-three series beginning Wednesday at Dodger Stadium.
Don’t automatically accept a team’s record as a reflection of their true talent. That’s sometimes true in a 162-game season. It’s especially true this year. In Milwaukee’s case, however, 29-31 seems about right. By run differential, they’re a 28-32 team. According to the ZiPS projections at FanGraphs back in July, the Brewers were expected to go 31-29. The Brewers probably are who their record says they are.
The Dodgers, then, shouldn’t have much to worry about, except that it’s a three-game series with all the uncertainty that lies therein. The first team to two losses is eliminated. I used my last newsletter to rail against the format. Now that the reality of a predetermined opponent has set in, I can be a little more specific about how unpredictable this series looks for the Dodgers.
You’ll hear a lot about how the Brewers’ best starting pitcher, Corbin Burnes, went on the disabled list just last week with an oblique injury. That’s bad. But remember, this is the same Brewers team that beat the Dodgers in Game 1 of the 2018 NLCS with:
2 innings from Gio Gonzalez2 from Brandon Woodruff3 from Josh Hader⅓ of an inning from Xavier Cedeno, Joakim Soria and Jeremy Jeffress1 inning from Corey Knebel
The question at the time was whether Brewers manager Craig Counsell could bullpen his way through an entire best-of-seven series. He did, and Milwaukee pushed the Dodgers all the way to Game 7. If Chris Taylor hadn’t caught Christian Yelich’s fly ball in the left-center field gap, I’m not sure the Dodgers win the game or the series.
This series is a best-of-three. Can Counsell deploy another bullpen blitz? He sure can, and he probably will. As a long-term strategy, that might not bode well for the Brewers’ World Series chances. The National League representative has exactly five scheduled days off the entire postseason. Counsell, though, isn’t worried about winning the World Series. His team is lucky just to be here. Their goal is simply to win this series. Do that, and the Brewers have already done more than they could have dreamed going into the final weekend of the regular season.
Keep in mind the biggest difference between this year’s Brewers team and their 2018 counterparts: That team could hit.
Yelich was the best hitter in the National League when healthy from 2018-19. This year he’s hitting .205 with a .356 on-base percentage and a .430 slugging percentage. That’s good for a 111 OPS+, a shade above average. Counsell has batted Yelich second or third all season. The Brewers’ next four hitters by plate appearances are Keston Hiura (88 OPS+), Avisail Garcia (79 OPS+), Orlando Arcia (96 OPS+) and Ryan Braun (101 OPS+). That’s not what you want.
That leaves Counsell in the unenviable position of riding the hottest bat and hoping for the best. Right now, his hottest hitters are former Dodgers infielder Jedd Gyorko (121 OPS+) and Daniel Vogelbach (162 OPS+), who’s playing for his third team this season. You have to squint to see that lineup scraping out runs in pitcher-friendly Dodger Stadium ― especially against right-handed pitching.
The Dodgers have the clear advantage on paper. “Firing on all cylinders” is a tired cliche, but the Dodgers are able to hit, pitch and field with any team in baseball. The Brewers should have the pitching to match the Dodgers, even without Burnes, and that’s the scary part. Their lineup has yet to fire on all cylinders, however, and they’ll only have two or three days in Los Angeles to fix that.
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