MILWAUKEE – Some baseball games are entertaining despite their many imperfections.
Like Game 2 of the 2026 NLCS, for instance. The Milwaukee Brewers made two errors. The Los Angeles Dodgers made two of their own. And keep in mind, that’s at a time when any borderline play is scored a hit. Each one of those errors was hard-earned.
There were pitchers who didn’t execute and managerial decisions that backfired. But alongside that, there were some genuinely impressive at-bats. Thanks to Jake Bauers, Christian Yelich and William Contreras, the Brewers had more than their share of those on their way to a tense 7-4 win at American Family Field Monday.
With the win, the Brewers take a commanding 2-0 lead over the two-time defending World Series champions, who must now win four of the next five games to advance. The Brewers, meanwhile, are just two wins away from advancing to the World Series for the first time since 1982.
They may often be overlooked, but this is a 103-win Brewers team that’s reached the playoffs eight of the past nine seasons. If anyone can unseat the Dodgers, it’s them.
With Yoshinobu Yamamoto starting for the Dodgers, the visitors had reason to hope they’d head back home with the series tied. In 11 career playoff appearances entering Game 2, the right-hander had a 2.14 ERA and the Dodgers were 10-1 when he pitched.
But the Brewers pushed Yamamoto’s pitch count from the beginning, and last year’s World Series MVP was out of the game after just 2.2 innings, having allowed three runs on 75 pitches.
Of all the patient at-bats by the Brewers, no at-bat exemplified their tenacious approach better than the 12-pitch walk Bauers drew with two out in the third. His discipline loaded the bases for Yelich, who singled home two for a 3-2 Brewers lead.
Speaking before the game, Bauers acknowledged the spotlight’s bigger than usual this time of year.
“A lot of what’s different is the outside noise,” he explained. “Instead of having five, six beat reporters in the clubhouse pre-game, you’re sitting in this room doing a full-on press conference like you’re playing NBA 2K or something.”
The more the Brewers win, the more attention he and his teammates will get. And when the series shifts to Los Angeles, where Bauers attended his first-ever MLB game, some of that attention may turn hostile.
But while Bauers and Yelich should be celebrated, the offensive star in this game was clearly Contreras. In the first, he drove home Brice Turang with a single. In the fifth, he tied the game with a no-doubt home run to centre. And in the sixth, he drove in the winning run with another single.
Games like this elevate players to new levels of stardom, and new levels of fanfare. Between innings here in Milwaukee, they show the likes of Eric Thames and Manny Pina on the scoreboard with the caption ‘Brewers legend.’ If that’s the threshold for legend status, Contreras has already reached it.
While starter Logan Henderson wasn’t especially effective, the Milwaukee bullpen recorded more outs than their starter for the second consecutive day. This time, it was Dustin May, JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby who combined for five scoreless innings.
Those Brewers relievers stifled a Dodgers offence that has only one extra-base hit through two games. Shohei Ohtani looks lost at the plate, Will Smith still can’t get a ball to drop in and Teoscar Hernandez only managed a sacrifice fly upon being promoted to the No. 3 spot in the order.
So while the Brewers got a superstar performance from Contreras, the Dodgers have nothing to match. Set aside payroll, market size and everything else: series like this often come down to which superstars perform and which ones sputter.
The Dodgers’ best players simply aren’t doing enough right now. For their run as baseball’s champions to continue, that’ll have to change immediately.
After Game 2, the teams prepared to fly across the country to Los Angeles, where Robert Gasse is expected to face Blake Snell when the series resumes Wednesday. For the Dodgers, pressure’s on. For the Brewers, it’s been building to this for years.
