The road to the National League pennant opens Sunday night at American Family Field with a pitching matchup that could have belonged to Milwaukee. Instead, Tarik Skubal will take the ball for the Dodgers against Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski, the National League Cy Young front-runner, in Game 1 of the NLCS.
First pitch is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. local time in Milwaukee, with FOX, FOX Deportes and FOX One carrying the game. It is a meeting of premier arms, but also a reminder of the Trade Deadline turn that helped shape this series.
Los Angeles landed Skubal from Detroit after president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman put together a package built around three prospects, including two players ranked among the sport’s Top 100. The pending free agent had returned from left-elbow surgery to remove loose bodies and had missed six weeks, but he remained the most coveted starter available.
Milwaukee was among the clubs with a need for him. The Brewers had already lost Brandon Woodruff and Quinn Priester for the season, and Skubal could have paired with Misiorowski atop a staff built to carry a deep October run. Max Muncy acknowledged how difficult that version of the Brewers would have been to face, saying Milwaukee already has a strong pitching group and that he was grateful Skubal was not added to it.
Instead, Skubal joined a Dodgers rotation already stocked with Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow. Snell owns two Cy Young Awards, Yamamoto was the 2025 World Series MVP, and the group gave Los Angeles both upside and protection against the injury concerns that had affected Snell, Glasnow and Ohtani.
Friedman said the move was made with the October roster in mind, not merely to block another contender. His aim, he said, was to build the strongest possible 26-man group for a club trying to win the 11 postseason games needed to finish the job. The Dodgers are chasing a third straight World Series championship, a feat accomplished only four times in Major League history and not since the Yankees won three in a row from 1998 through 2000.
The arm Milwaukee missed is now across the field
The Brewers did not fold after losing the Skubal bidding. They added former Dodgers starter Dustin May and brought in relievers Antonio Senzatela and JoJo Romero. Still, from Skubal’s Dodgers debut on Aug. 4 through the close of the regular season, Los Angeles starters led the majors with 8.0 fWAR. Milwaukee’s rotation ranked 18th at 2.9.
Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold did not offer details on the pursuit, but made clear that Skubal had been a prized Deadline target throughout the game. He called the left-hander “really talented” and noted that Milwaukee had seen him before, adding that the Brewers would need to be prepared for the challenge in Game 1.
At the time of the trade, Milwaukee outfielder Sal Frelick said the clubhouse did not view the missed opportunity as a sign that something was lacking. A pitcher of Skubal’s stature, Frelick said, would help any club, and it was hardly shocking that the Dodgers were the team to land another blockbuster addition.
The Brewers have earned the right to host this opener. They have reached the postseason in eight of the past nine seasons and finished with the best regular-season record in the majors in each of the last two years. But their recent October history with Los Angeles is hard to ignore.
The Dodgers swept Milwaukee in last year’s NLCS, while the Brewers hit .118 for the series, the lowest postseason batting average in a series of at least three games. Milwaukee scored only four runs, with just two coming against the Dodgers’ starting foursome of Snell, Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani over 28 2/3 innings.
Ohtani will not pitch in this rematch, but Skubal fills that vacancy with his own imposing resume as the reigning two-time American League Cy Young Award winner. He said he had not spent much time considering what might have happened had he gone elsewhere. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has considered it, though.
Roberts said the series would look “really different” if Skubal were pitching for the Brewers, particularly in a best-of-seven matchup. Milwaukee has not reached the World Series since 1982 and has never won a championship. To change that history, the Brewers will first have to solve the ace they once hoped would be wearing their uniform.
