MILWAUKEE — First things first: the fans in the outdoor stadium in Philadelphia are louder than the fans in the indoor stadium in Milwaukee. No competition.
It's respectful and really nice here. They booed Shohei Ohtanibut sluggishly, almost out of a sense of duty. In Philadelphia, Ohtani was booed mercilessly and hostilely.
But here's the thing: It didn't matter because the Dodgers silenced the enemy crowd wherever they went this October. Dodgers undefeated on the road this postseason: 2-0 in Philadelphia and now 2-0 in Milwaukee.
The Dodgers deployed four jammers. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are just pseudonyms. Their real names are Snell, Yamamoto, Glasnow and Otani.
“This is amazing” Tyler Glasnow said. “Every time you’re there, it’s like a show.”
Dodgers won the World Series last year with home runs and bullpen games and New York Yankees Weaknessesbut not with the starting pitching. In 16 games last October, the Dodgers had more bullpen games (four) than quality starts (two), and their starters averaged a 5.25 earned run average.
In eight games this October, the Dodgers have made seven quality starts, and it's no coincidence that they are 7-1. The starters posted a 1.54 ERA, the lowest of any team in National League history that played at least eight postseason games.
“Our starting pitching this postseason has been incredible,” said Andrew FriedmanPresident of Dodgers Baseball Operations. “We knew this would be a strength, but it is beyond what we could have reasonably expected.
“There are a lot of different ways to win the postseason, but this is by far the best way to do it.”
The elders of the sport say that momentum is the next day's starting pitcher. In a sport where most teams struggle to identify even one ace, the Dodgers boast four.
In the last three games – the decisive one against the Phillies and two here against the Brewers – the Dodgers haven't even trailed a full inning.
In the division series clincher, the Phillies scored one run in the top of the inning, but the Dodgers scored in the bottom of the inning.
The Brewers never led on Monday. On Tuesday, the Brewers hit their first home run in the bottom of the first, but the Dodgers scored twice in the top of the second.
On Monday, like Blake Snell After pitching eight shutout innings, the Brewers went 0-for-1 with the men in scoring position—and that at-bat was the last one out of the game. On Tuesday, like Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a complete game, the Brewers were unable to put a runner in scoring position.
This is an impulse. Silencing an opposing crowd is the same way: limiting their team's momentum.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto hits a hit against the Brewers in the fifth inning Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“I do think that given what we did in Philadelphia and coming here, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of momentum,” Glasnow said.
Of the four aces, Glasnow and Ohtani were unable to take the field last fall as they were recovering from injuries and Snell was playing for the San Francisco Giants.
In the 2021 NLCS, the Dodgers started Walker Buehler twice, as well as Julio Urias, Max Scherzer and rookies Joe Kelly and Corey Knebel once each. Scherzer was unable to make his second scheduled start due to injury.
Said infielder-outfielder Kiké Hernandez: “We used to have really good starting pitchers, but at some point we hit a roadblock in the postseason. The consistency of seven or eight games now is impressive. In some ways, it's made it a little easier to play in the lineup.”
In the wild card round, the Dodgers scored 18 runs in two games against the Cincinnati Reds. Since then they have scored 20 runs in six games.
“We said before the postseason started that our starting pitching would be what carried us,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “And so far this has been the case.”
The starters have come into their own in the final weeks of the regular season – their ERA is 1.49 over their last 30 games – not that Hernandez cares much about that right now.
“The regular season doesn't matter,” he said. “We can win 300 games in the regular season.
“If we don't win the World Series, it doesn't matter.”
The Dodgers won two games in their return to the World Series. If they can get those two wins in the next three games, they won't have to return to Milwaukee, land of the great sausage races and polka dancers in the dugout.
There may not be another game here this season. They are kind and energetic fans, although not as loud as the Philly Phanatics.
“This,” Glasnow said, “is the loudest place I’ve ever been.”
