Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A Dodger left-hander, who put video game-like numbers in the regular season, had a colossal dud in arguably the most important game of the year, in no small part by being left to hang out to dry in the seventh inning, before a back-breaking, likely season-breaking, home run. And then, the bullpen let whatever hope still in the building out with great alacrity.
The fact that this paragraph could apply to either Clayton Kershaw or Blake Snell is one of life’s little ironies. Snell became the second pitcher in history to start a playoff game by giving up a home run and have his last pitch in that same game go for a home run. The other pitcher was John Smoltz in Game 3 of the 1991 NLCS.
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Considering Snell hadn’t previously allowed a home run all year, the timing is terrible.
If this current era of Dodger baseball started because Rays’ manager pulled Snell too early in 2020, the bookend image of Dave Roberts leaving Snell in too long in 2026 is striking.
Unless you have been mercifully under a rock, the Dodgers have failed, so far, with aplomb in this NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers. Not to take any flowers away from the Brewers: they have played hungrier, angrier, and more effectively than the Dodgers. And now Tyler Glasnow and an offense that has mostly been absent stand between the Dodgers and Cancun.
If you told me that the poor play in this series was from this past July, I wouldn’t disagree. The Dodgers look like they would probably drop a series to the Colorado Rockies right now if given the opportunity. Again, it’s not an unknown problem. Over the past two seasons, you’ve seen this movie; you’ve heard this song.
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It’s just unusual to see it in the most important games of the year, this year.
Time is a flat circle
Like the bad, old days, the Dodgers have reacted to adversity in this round by being “confused and stunned like a duck hit on the head.” President Lincoln used that turn of phrase to describe one of his generals after the Union defeat at the Battle of Chickamauga.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that the situation is likely going to resolve itself, one way or another, in less than eight hours after you read this essay.
Five of the last six times there has been a rematch in the LCS in consecutive years, the loser in the first year wins the rematch. The Brewers are one win away from making that bit of recent history, six out of seven times. Moreover, with a win today, the Brewers would be the first team ever to repay a sweep one year by sweeping in the rematch the following year.
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The last time the Dodgers were down 0-3 in the playoffs was the 1966 World Series: Koufax’s last ride. The Dodgers ended up being swept and shut out over Games 2 through 4. In a bit of historic irony, last year’s championship team had the lowest batting average for a winning team since the 1966 Orioles.
Sarah Langs reported via EliasSports that there have now been six times when a team has gotten a 3-0 advantage on the reigning champion. Four of these instances have involved the Dodgers: 1963, 1966, 2017, and now. Four of the last five times, the series ended in a sweep. Only the 2017 Dodgers allowed a game five.
Getting ready to look for loose change
The Dodgers have been bad in this LCS; you don’t have to take my word for it. Once again, Max Muncy is singing a slightly more urgent tune than he did after the dud to end Game 2.
I applaud Muncy’s candor, but I must politely disagree on one point: excrement, in a pinch, can be useful.
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Based on what we knew then, you can even use it to grow a potato. There’s nothing useful here from the Dodgers over these past three games, no silver lining, no green shoots to build upon, no fun moment with young phenom Josue De Paula to obsess over or expand upon for the pending long winter. Sure, let’s use the most exciting prospect since Cody Bellinger as a decoy.
The figurative harvest has come back with blight, and everything looks dead. But technically, it’s not dead; it’s only mostly dead, and unless you’ve forgotten — shame on you — there’s a big difference between “mostly dead” and “all dead.”
Only one single solitary team has ever climbed the Everest that is a 0-3 best-of-seven hole in baseball: the 2004 Boston Red Sox.
Yes, Dave Roberts sparked the comeback; that’s not the point here. He’s not running. He’s not playing. Heck, last year in Toronto, he badly lost a footrace to Hyeseong Kim, which kept the team loose.
The fact to remember from that ALCS is that Boston took the figurative belt to its bottom in Game 3, losing 19-8 in Boston. The Red Sox looked beyond dead, and it took two extra-inning games to force Game 6 back in the Bronx and returned the belt with aplomb in Game 7.
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Yes, the 2004 Red Sox turned it around. There is nothing in the past three games of play to indicate the 2026 Dodgers are about to go on a similar run. But again, the Red Sox looked mostly dead until they weren’t.
The only thing left to lose is pride
In all likelihood, the series and the season are hours away from being over. The Dodgers can either roll over or get mad and finally start punching back. The Brewers have played well, but they haven’t played perfect baseball. There have been opportunities.
A good team finds a way to win. A bad team finds a way to lose. A mediocre team attempts to convince itself and you that they are a good team, only to underachieve until their season ends.
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Yes, the 2026 Dodgers won 100 regular season games. That fact and a cookie leaves you with a cookie and a likely forgotten notation in Baseball Reference, unless things drastically turn around.
Talk of a threepeat and talk of history have become a yoke around this team’s neck. So throw it out. It’s like eating a whale: you do it one bite at a time. If the series extends past today, the teams will be playing for free. Why not give everyone something to talk about?
If I had to work for free, I would make a spectacle of it.
Truthfully, I’ve been on house money mode since I was fortunate enough to be at last year’s Game 7. My only fear that game wasn’t a defeat; it was that the team laid an egg and made me feel dumb for making the effort to get to Toronto and back in 48 hours.
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Losing is one thing; getting embarrassed is another. The play and the results over the last three games have been the latter. The moments where I haven’t thought that this team was underachieving or skimming by on pedigree and reputation have been far fewer than I would have preferred.
I harbor no illusion that this essay will change anything. Nor am I trying to annoy or aggravate or any other cardinal sin of this profession. I operate under the delusion that the right words can move mountains, or at the very least, make one smile when everyone is frowning.
The 2026 Dodgers could do better and should do better. They have at least one last chance to do so. Again, the Brewers have been better on the field simply by being watchable. If there was a time for this team, our team, to live up to its pedigree, its design, it would be to acknowledge the cold, hard truth that there is no tomorrow unless they outright take it.
Keep clawing and fighting until they tell you to stop. Maybe you become a legend. Maybe you get one last road trip to Milwaukee? Maybe you get to see Tarik Skubal one last guaranteed time in a Dodger uniform? Maybe you get to prevent the indignity of seeing your home fans, some of whom paid $75 for parking, watch another team celebrate at Dodger Stadium?
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And if not? Well, then it doesn’t matter what this team did. It simply underachieved when it mattered most, and the rest from them would be silence.
Contracts will expire. Players will move on. Time will move on, and ripping the bandage off with critical analysis can start. Calling out an offense built like a supercar and performing like a busted Honda Civic, calling out a rotation that has underperformed when it has mattered most, and calling out a manager who literally panicked and resuscitated jokes and memes from 2018, 2019, and 2021 that he successfully put to bed over the past two seasons?
Now is not the time for postmortems and requiems. We likely have a lengthy, miserable lockout-aided offseason for those essays. But first, I am a slave to the bit, and we are going to press on, much like I hope that the Dodgers do today.
Because if not now, when?
