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<\/p>\nNeither team had an easy road through the National League Division Series round, but the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers both made it to the National League Championship Series in fairly good shape.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers are back in familiar territory, one series win away from the World Series, and they\u2019ll be looking to be MLB\u2019s first repeat champion since the New York Yankees in 2000. The Brewers, meanwhile, are trying to get back to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1982 \u2014 when they were an American League team. Milwaukee has the home-field advantage, while Los Angeles has the benefit of having finished the NLDS in four games. Who will take home the National League crown? Our MLB experts make their picks:<\/p>\n
Staff predictions for the NLCS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Christian Yelich and the Brewers are likely to put the Dodgers\u2019 defense to the test. (Kevork Djansezian \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
This series could easily be positioned as a David vs. Goliath battle with more than $200 million separating the two clubs\u2019 payrolls and several million separating the populations of the teams\u2019 home cities. But that would be underselling just how good all season the Brewers have been and how well they played the Dodgers during the regular season (6-0). The Dodgers\u2019 rotation is the healthiest its been all year, however, and those arms have our experts giving L.A. a slight edge in what looks like it will be a very competitive series. Below is a selection of our experts\u2019 thoughts on who they think will win the National League pennant.<\/p>\n
Chad Jennings (LA):\u00a0It\u2019s too easy to say the Dodgers are simply more talented, but honestly, these are the Dodgers as we imagined them back in April. Their rotation is healthy again, and while their bullpen is a mess, they\u2019ve found ways to make the mess work (and frankly, the Brewers have their own questions in the rotation). The Dodgers just beat the Phillies despite basically all of their key hitters struggling. Is Shohei Ohtani really going to hit .056 again? Is Freddie Freeman going to slug .267? The Dodgers were built to win in October, and it shows. They have some problems, but they have even more solutions.<\/p>\n
Ian O\u2019Connor (MIL):\u00a0Chemistry, home-field advantage and, most importantly, Pat Murphy absolutely needs to win a ring at some point. Also, the Dodgers aren\u2019t quite what they were last year.<\/p>\n
Levi Weaver (LA):\u00a0It\u2019s all well and good to point out that the Brewers have the home-field advantage because \u201cthey won more games than the Dodgers, so how can this reeeeeeally be a David vs. Goliath matchup? Got ya there!\u201d no you don\u2019t. That was the regular-season Dodgers. The Dodgers who had, like, 2 1\/2 starting pitchers and seemingly couldn\u2019t be bothered to lock in for a midseason matchup against mere humans. Have these Dodgers, with their enough-starters-to-stash-three-of-them-in-the-bullpen staff, looked at all like those Dodgers? Not to me, they haven\u2019t. I would always rather see a new team in the WS, but if you\u2019re asking who I think will make it? The October Dodgers.<\/p>\n
Grant Brisbee (MIL):\u00a0If they could make the Cubs\u2019 defense sweat, they\u2019ll do a number on the Dodgers\u2019 defense.<\/p>\n
Katie Woo (LA):\u00a0The juxtaposition between these teams is real. One one hand, you have a billion dollar baseball team, where advancing to the World Series is the rule, not the exception. Then there\u2019s Milwaukee, a small-market, low payroll organization that has thrived in building it\u2019s own team based on its exceptional player development system. The Brewers are athletic, smart and relentless on the bases. The qualms about the Dodgers\u2019 bullpen are valid, especially in a best-of-seven series \u2014 as are the concerns regarding Ohtani\u2019s abysmal offensive production. But it\u2019s still the Dodgers. And they will always be the team to beat.<\/p>\n
Will Sammon (MIL):\u00a0There\u2019s no good reason to pick against baseball\u2019s best team. Scouts and executives from different teams have told me they wish their respective clubs played more like the Brewers. They lack some power and starting pitching, but they bought into an identity. Management asks specific players to perform specific tasks. Usually, it works. Just watch the way they pitch, run, hit, defend \u2014 and win.<\/p>\n
Mitch Bannon (LA):\u00a0Two months ago, I would\u2019ve confidently taken the Brewers. But they just don\u2019t have the pitching to survive a seven-game series against the Dodgers\u2019 lineup right now.<\/p>\n
Jayson Stark (MIL):\u00a0I\u2019m not listening to the part of my brain that says the Dodgers have the best roster in the sport and by far the better rotation in this series. I\u2019m listening to the part that says no champs repeat anymore in this sport. And I\u2019m at the point where I can\u2019t pick against that Brewers magic. The Brewers stole nine bases and relentlessly pestered the Dodgers with their legs this season, and also got to the bullpen and scored late in every game. One of these days in this postseason, the Dodgers\u2019 non-Sasaki bullpen issues will catch up with them. So Brewers in seven!<\/p>\n
Dennis Lin (LA):\u00a0The Brewers have one player on a nine-figure contract. The Dodgers have seven.<\/p>\n
C. Trent Rosecrans (MIL):\u00a0Remember last October when the Dodgers made the Yankees look like a poorly coached high school team? Well, after the baseball world seemed to think the Dodgers invented the wheel play last week, wait until they see this Brewers team play. The Dodgers are more talented, but the Brewers just don\u2019t make too many mistakes. Brewers in five.<\/p>\n
Jon Greenberg (LA):\u00a0The Brewers are a great story and a fine team, but the Dodgers are built for October in a way the Cubs were not. It would be cool if Milwaukee won but I think it\u2019s Dodgers in five.<\/p>\n
David O\u2019Brien (MIL):\u00a0The depth of their pitching staff, balance of their lineup and the proverbial \u201cit\u201d factor will allow the Brewers to continue their roll and further quash their rep as postseason failures. They\u2019re not at all cowed by the Dodgers\u2019 star power, and home-field advantage at Milwaukee will be significant.<\/p>\n
Andy McCullough (LA):\u00a0Unlike the Phillies, the Brewers do not have lefty starters who can shut down Ohtani.<\/p>\n
Johnny Flores Jr. (MIL):\u00a0Fundamentals reign supreme during the postseason, and few are as sound at the basics as Murphy\u2019s crew of \u201cAverage Joes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sahadev Sharma (LA):\u00a0The starting pitching is healthy and the Dodgers are looking like the machine most expected entering the season. The Brewers are tough to beat and the Dodgers traditional relievers are banged up, but their rotation depth allows them to beef up the bullpen. The expectation here is that they just overpower Milwaukee.<\/p>\n
Chandler Rome (LA):\u00a0All the Brewers\u2019 nicknames are nice \u2014 Miz, Sal, Yelli, Willy, Woody, whatever else they have. Murphy making everyone introduce themselves at news conferences is charming. The candor and call-outs that come afterward is refreshing. Having Bob Uecker\u2019s spirit makes Milwaukee a hard team to pick against, but the Dodgers\u2019 starpower and starting pitching is too much to overlook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neither team had an easy road through the National League Division Series round, but the Los Angeles Dodgers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2323,2325,363,99],"class_list":["post-221048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}