Brewers exposed what the Blue Jays were missing against the Dodgers

Rejoice baseball fans everywhere: the Los Angeles Dodgers won’t be winning a third straight World Series title. The Milwaukee Brewers completed the shocking sweep in Game 4 of the NLCS on Thursday night, rallying from an early 4-0 deficit to send the two-time defending champions packing. 

The Brewers’ success is bittersweet for fans of the Toronto Blue Jays. While there is satisfaction in watching another team slay the high-spending giant, it’s hard not to dwell on how agonizingly close Toronto came to doing it themselves last fall. 

How did the Brewers take down the Dodgers? 

It’s worth acknowledging how poorly the Dodgers played in this NLCS. Their lineup of future Hall-of-Famers was effectively swinging pool noodles for much of the series. Their bullpen, meanwhile, couldn’t hold a lead if their lives depended on it. 

Still, the Brewers thoroughly earned their victory and probably would have beaten any version of the Dodgers playing as well as they did. There was nothing flukey or circumstantial about the beatdown that they delivered across those four games. 

It all starts with their disciplined approach at the plate, best exemplified by Jake Bauers’ legendary battle against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in game two. He flustered the reigning World Series MVP in a way that no hitter has since he came to MLB. 

Bauers wasn’t the only guy working pitchers, though. Everyone from Willson Contreras to Sal Frelick was grinding out their plate appearances regardless of the outcome. They made the Dodgers pitchers work and seemed to wear them out by the middle innings. 

Then, when they got on base, they raised havoc with their legs. Game 4 was a perfect example of this as they stole multiple bases off Tyler Glasnow once they finally figured him out after he dominated the first four innings. He unraveled as the pressure they created clearly got to his head. 

This team speed is perhaps the biggest difference between the 2026 Brewers and the 2025 Blue Jays. Toronto, while similarly pesky, didn’t have the wheels to punish the Dodgers on the bases. They needed to string more hits together to score. The contact-oriented approach both teams employ is best paired with elite baserunning.

On the pitching side, the Brewers were actually let down by their starters. Soon-to-be Cy Young Award winner Jacob Misiorowski was shaky in Gam 1, while Logan Henderson made the wrong kind of postseason history with two throwing errors in Game 2. Robert Gasser was their only guy to complete five innings, doing so in Game 3.

It was their bullpen that led the way instead. Aaron Ashby probably would have been NLCS MVP were it not for the heroics of Jake Bauers. He threw 6.2 innings of scoreless ball across the four games. He’s the kind of lethal weapon the Blue Jays did not have back in 2025. It wouldn’t be surprising if his performance starts a trend of teams stretching their key relievers for multiple innings. 

Once the World Series wraps up in a few weeks— with these Brewers likely winning their first championship in franchise history over the Cleveland Guardians or Tampa Bay Rays— the Blue Jays will have plenty of work to do, and they would be wise to heed the lessons taught in this NLCS. 

Toronto needs to get more patient at the plate and get faster on the bases. Cloning Ashby wouldn’t hurt, either. Here’s hoping general manager Ross Atkins keeps this in mind when deciding which path to take this offseason. 

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