Brewers followed Blue Jays’ blueprint to expose Blake Snell in another October defeat

The Milwaukee Brewers win in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series must have given LA Dodgers starter Blake Snell an ominous sense of déjà vu. The Brewers followed a blueprint the Toronto Blue Jays had already used to rattle the 33-year-old Dodgers' left-hander on one of baseball’s biggest stages.

Jackson Chourio ambushed Snell’s first pitch for a home run, Jake Bauers and Garrett Mitchell went back to back in the seventh inning, and Milwaukee’s 6-2 victory pushed the defending champions to the brink of elimination with a 3-0 series deficit.

For Blue Jays fans, the sequence should have looked awfully familiar. In Game 5 of last year’s World Series, Davis Schneider stepped in against Snell and launched the first pitch of the night into the left-field seats. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. followed on the third pitch with a 394-foot solo shot of his own, making the Blue Jays the first team in MLB history to open a World Series game with back-to-back home runs.

Chourio delivered the same kind of immediate impact in Game 3 of the NLCS, driving Snell’s opening pitch out of the park. Schneider and Chourio are the only hitters since 2008 to homer on the first pitch of a postseason game, and both did it against Snell.

The similarities did not end there. Toronto’s consecutive blasts came before Snell could record an out. Milwaukee saved its back-to-back damage for the seventh, when Bauers completed an 11-pitch battle with a 412-foot, go-ahead home run and Mitchell sent Snell’s final pitch over the wall.

Bauer's at-bat is his second 10+ pitch at bat against a Dodgers starter this series in which the outcome of the at-bat likely changed the outcome of the game. In Game 2, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound, Bauers hung in for 12 pitches before drawing a walk. That was followed up by Christian Yelich's two-run single that knocked Yamamoto from the game.

Snell had retired 14 consecutive batters before the Brewers flipped the game. His first pitch left the stadium, and so did his last.

Another Blake Snell loss has left the Dodgers on the brink of elimination

In the 2025 World Series, Toronto’s early power surge gave rookie Trey Yesavage room to outpitch the decorated veteran in a game that moved the Blue Jays ahead 3-2 in the World Series. The win left Toronto one victory from its third ever championship and turned Snell’s rough opening into the defining image of a pivotal night.

Milwaukee has created an even steeper hill for the Dodgers to climb. They now trail 3-0 in a best-of-seven series, a deficit only the 2004 Boston Red Sox have overcome in major-league history. The last time Los Angeles fell behind 3-0 in a best-of-seven postseason series, was when the Baltimore Orioles completed a sweep in the 1966 World Series.

Snell’s role with the Dodgers is seemingly built around these moments. He only pitched in nine regular season games for the Dodgers but that's not when they need him. They need him to deliver the goods in October. But once again, the two-time Cy Young Award winner could not finish the job.

Across his last four playoff starts, Snell has allowed 21 hits, 15 earned runs and 14 walks in 21.1 innings. His 6.33 ERA and 1.64 WHIP in that span are not what the Dodgers expect out of him.

The Blue Jays showed last fall how quickly Snell could be knocked off script. The Brewers borrowed that formula and added their own twist.

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