Milwaukee has the early edge, but the National League Championship Series is already carrying the tension of a long October week. The Brewers took Sunday night’s opener, 2-1, at American Family Field, leaving the Dodgers with a quick turnaround and a familiar assignment: hand the ball to Yoshinobu Yamamoto and even the series before it shifts in mood and momentum.
Game 2 is set for Monday at 5 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. local time in Milwaukee and 2 p.m. PT. FOX and FS1 will carry the game nationally, with FOX Deportes and FOX One also scheduled to air it. MLB.TV access in the United States requires authentication through a participating pay-TV provider. International live coverage is available outside Canada; Sportsnet holds Canada’s English-language postseason rights, while RDS will air the NL postseason in French.
Dave Roberts did not make the situation sound complicated after the Game 1 loss.
“We have to reset,” the Dodgers manager said. “We trust the guy we have going tomorrow completely, and we need to win a baseball game.”
That urgency is real. Across best-of-seven postseason series, clubs that lose the first two games have come back only 16 times in 95 attempts, a recovery rate of 17 percent. Milwaukee can put Los Angeles in that hole behind rookie right-hander Logan Henderson.
Yamamoto brings October pedigree
Yamamoto arrives with a substantial postseason résumé. He threw his first Major League complete game in Game 2 of the 2025 NLCS, and it came against these Brewers. He also worked seven innings of one-run baseball against Atlanta in last week’s NL Division Series.
Los Angeles has won 10 of Yamamoto’s 11 playoff appearances, and he owns a 2.14 ERA in those outings. His ability to work deep would be particularly welcome after the Dodgers used Alex Vesia, Evan Phillips and Tanner Scott behind Tarik Skubal in the opener.
That trio should remain available. Vesia threw 16 pitches, Phillips logged 17 and Scott needed nine. Scott and Edwin Díaz stand as the Dodgers’ preferred late-inning options, with Díaz the likeliest choice for save chances even without a formal closer designation.
Yamamoto will be opposed by Henderson, another 24-year-old right-hander in Milwaukee’s young pitching group. Henderson allowed one earned run over five innings against San Diego in Game 2 of the Division Series, his first taste of this kind of spotlight.
“There will be plenty of adrenaline,” Henderson said. “Learning to handle those emotions last week should help me with this start.”
In 24 regular-season and postseason starts, Henderson has not allowed more than three runs in any of them. He does not bring Jacob Misiorowski’s premium velocity, but his fastball ranked in the 90th percentile in Statcast run value, and his changeup has been Milwaukee’s best offering of that type.
He has also shown he can handle a marquee matchup. On Aug. 16 at Dodger Stadium, Henderson beat Tarik Skubal after pitching a career-best seven innings. That win gave Milwaukee the series and season-series advantage against Los Angeles and helped secure the overall Major League lead that delivered home-field advantage throughout the Brewers’ postseason run.
Projected lineups lean on familiar cores
The Dodgers are expected to see another right-handed starter and could stay close to their Game 1 alignment. Roberts has moved Shohei Ohtani into the cleanup spot or lower during the past three games as the star works through a quiet stretch. Will Smith has struggled more severely, but Roberts intends to keep the catcher near the top of the order for now.
| Dodgers | Position |
|---|---|
| Mookie Betts | SS |
| Freddie Freeman | 1B |
| Will Smith | C |
| Shohei Ohtani | DH |
| Teoscar Hernández | LF |
| Max Muncy | 3B |
| Andy Pages | CF |
| Kyle Tucker | RF |
| Tommy Edman | 2B |
Milwaukee’s likely arrangement resembles its Game 2 lineup against San Diego’s Michael King in the Division Series. The Brewers kept Jackson Chourio in the leadoff spot while adding left-handed bats around the middle and lower half of the card.
| Brewers | Position |
|---|---|
| Jackson Chourio | LF |
| Brice Turang | 2B |
| Jake Bauers | 1B |
| William Contreras | C |
| Garrett Mitchell | CF |
| Christian Yelich | DH |
| Sal Frelick | RF |
| Cooper Pratt | SS |
| David Hamilton | 3B |
Brewers bullpen has carried a narrow-game run
Milwaukee’s late-inning group has been a major reason it has survived one tight game after another. Left-handers DL Hall and Aaron Ashby, along with right-handers Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill, have yielded only one unearned run over 19 2/3 postseason innings combined.
Uribe has appeared in each of the Brewers’ five playoff games. Ashby and Megill have each worked in four, while Hall has pitched in three. As a full relief corps, Milwaukee owns a 0.38 ERA through five postseason games and has limited San Diego and Los Angeles to a .163 batting average in 23 2/3 innings. That average is tied for the third-lowest by a club through its first five playoff games, with a minimum of 15 innings.
The Brewers have played nothing but close contests so far. Each of their first five postseason games has been decided by one or two runs, making them the 10th team ever to begin a postseason that way and only the fourth in the last 110 years.
Slumps, injuries and a timely Brewers breakthrough
Tucker went without a hit in the opener but reached twice on walks and remains one of Los Angeles’ steadier offensive pieces. Pages has begun to find his swing over the past three games and owns the Dodgers’ only two postseason hits with runners in scoring position.
Smith is 1-for-19 in the postseason with seven strikeouts. Ohtani had a hit and a walk in Game 1 but has not yet broken through at his usual level. Before the NLCS began, he took on-field batting practice on consecutive days, an unusual routine he uses when trying to climb out of a slump.
Ohtani continues to manage right biceps and left knee issues, while Freeman is playing through a right knee concern. Reliever Will Klein, the World Series hero, has faced hitters as he works back from right elbow discomfort but has not appeared in a game since July 31 and is viewed as depth for now. Blake Treinen, sidelined by right shoulder inflammation, is not expected to pitch again this postseason.
For Milwaukee, Turang entered Sunday’s game 2-for-16 in the Division Series and 4-for-48 in his recent playoff stretch before tying Game 1 with a fourth-inning home run against Skubal and the Dodgers. Rookie Luis Lara later became the fourth Brewers rookie to record a postseason RBI. Chourio had two as a rookie in 2024, while Frelick and Caleb Durbin each had one.
There is larger history around the series, too. This is the 17th postseason matchup between two 100-win teams and the sixth to occur in a League Championship Series. The last such meeting was Houston against the Yankees in the 2019 ALCS. The only previous NLCS featuring two 100-win clubs came in 1976, when the Phillies met the Reds.
For now, though, the series comes down to a more immediate question: can Yamamoto give Los Angeles the reset Roberts wants, or can Henderson and Milwaukee’s bullpen turn one narrow win into a commanding lead?
