{"id":221286,"date":"2025-10-13T10:35:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/221286\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:35:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:35:11","slug":"why-brewers-beating-big-market-dodgers-would-be-good-for-baseball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/221286\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Brewers beating big-market Dodgers would be good for baseball"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pat Murphy<\/a>, the gregarious manager of the Milwaukee Brewers<\/a>, was in no hurry to wrap up his news conference Sunday.<\/p>\n

He compared Mookie Betts<\/a> playing shortstop to Stephen Curry playing forward. He anointed Freddie Freeman as his favorite player even though \u201che\u2019s ruined Brewers history many times.\u201d He read off names from an eight-year-old Dodgers scouting report that included Yasiel Puig, Rich Hill and Curtis Granderson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Kenley Jansen,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cYou guys miss him?\u201d<\/p>\n

All good things must come to an end, even a manager working his audience with the rapport of a standup comedian. The Dodgers\u2019 time in the press conference room was fast approaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to take up any of the Dodgers\u2019 precious time,\u201d Murphy cracked. \u201cThey\u2019re on a shoestring budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Share via Close extra sharing options <\/p>\n

Murphy is only too happy to play into the predominant story line for the National League Championship Series: The defending World Series champions<\/a>, with a payroll three times that of the Brewers, against a plucky little outfit representing baseball\u2019s smallest market.<\/p>\n

If he can say anything that puts a little more pressure on the Dodgers, good for him. Back in July, when the Brewers swept the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, Murphy told<\/a> a roomful of reporters: \u201cNo disrespect to the great fans of Japan baseball, but they can\u2019t name five guys in our lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christian Yelich. Jackson Chourio. Hmmm, does Ryan Braun still play here?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always the underdogs,\u201d Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff told reporters<\/a> Saturday.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get real, though: The NLCS opens here, not at Dodger Stadium, because the Brewers won more games than the Dodgers \u2014 and every other major league team \u2014 this season. And the Brewers did that because they swept the season series from the Dodgers \u2014 a sweep in Milwaukee right before the All-Star break, then a sweep in L.A.<\/p>\n

On Saturday, after the Brewers won the division series, Murphy kicked off the clubhouse celebration with this toast<\/a>: \u201cAll year long, they called us the Average Joes. Today, you\u2019re the not-so-fricking Average Joes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers learned that the hard way this summer. They aren\u2019t buying what Murphy is selling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not falling for the Average Joes. They\u2019re not,\u201d said Blake Snell, the Dodgers\u2019 Game 1 starting pitcher.<\/p>\n

Said infielder Miguel Rojas: \u201cThey showed the whole league and the world that they were the best team in the league during the regular season. They deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But back to Murphy, who pointed out the Dodgers players are the ones that appear on your screen not only in games, but in commercials.<\/p>\n

\"Brewers <\/p>\n

Brewers manager Pat Murphy knows there\u2019s nothing \u201caverage Joe\u201d about the Dodgers.<\/p>\n

(Michael Reaves \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have the star power,\u201d he said, \u201cand they\u2019re great players.\u201d<\/p>\n

And his Brewers?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t look on paper and say, \u2018How many of our position players would be on the Dodgers?\u2019 You can\u2019t really project that many of them would,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cBut somehow they find a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers, though …<\/p>\n

Murphy on Shohei Ohtani: \u201cHe\u2019s one of the all-time greats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy on Snell: \u201cI\u2019ve been very disappointed when he\u2019s pitched and I\u2019m in the stadium. He\u2019s really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy on the Dodgers\u2019 newfound closer, Roki Sasaki: \u201cThrowing 100 with a split? That shouldn\u2019t be fair. We\u2019re going to try to petition the league and see if we can get him suspended for something.\u201d<\/p>\n

That last part was a joke, but this is not: The league website ranked the top starting pitchers<\/a> remaining in the playoffs. The ranking included four Dodgers before any of the Brewers.<\/p>\n

And this is no joke, either: On Sunday, Fangraphs projected<\/a> the Dodgers\u2019 chance of winning the World Series at 44% and the Brewers\u2019 chance at 11%.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The good fans of Milwaukee were not amused by the pronouncements of Times columnists Dylan Hern\u00e1ndez (\u201cThe Dodgers are returning to the World Series<\/a>.\u201d) and Bill Plaschke (\u201cThe rest of their journey should be the easy part<\/a>.\u201d).<\/p>\n

At one point Sunday, Murphy referred to the Dodgers as \u201cAmerica\u2019s team.\u201d I\u2019d argue the Brewers should be America\u2019s team<\/a>, the poster boys for how a team with smart and stable management can compete with a team with an unlimited payroll. <\/p>\n

Would you prefer for your team to be owned by someone whining about the Dodgers and their payroll, or someone dedicated to beating them?<\/p>\n

Still, consider baseball\u2019s final four: The Dodgers, the defending champions, gunning for their third title in six years. The Toronto Blue Jays, 32 years removed from their last championship. The Brewers and Seattle Mariners, each with no championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know, being from Seattle,\u201d Snell said, \u201chow important a World Series is there, and the fans, how excited they are, and how crazy the city was in Seattle when they beat Detroit.\u201d<\/p>\n

L.A. bleeds Dodger blue. Perhaps the rest of the country \u2014 two countries, in fact \u2014 is ready for some fresh blood.<\/p>\n

\"Shohei <\/p>\n

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani works out at American Family Field in Milwaukee on Sunday.<\/p>\n

(Robert Gauthier \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re happy to see us,\u201d Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers led the majors in road attendance this season, and last season too.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople love for fresh blood,\u201d Roberts said, \u201cuntil you potentially see TV ratings.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think they love seeing the Dodgers, whether they like rooting against us or for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brewers beating up the big-market bully really would be good for baseball. Milwaukee is not a fluke like, say, the 2021 San Francisco Giants. The Brewers are in the playoffs for the seventh time in eight years. They are a model franchise.<\/p>\n

They are not, however, about to face the Dodgers they faced in July. That team ran Michael Conforto, James Outman and Esteury Ruiz through two outfield spots, and that team never deployed Snell or Ohtani on the mound against Milwaukee.<\/p>\n

Dodgers in five.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pat Murphy, the gregarious manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, was in no hurry to wrap up his news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[124530,1558,124527,8974,52344,22360,81170,2325,363,124529,50313,12190,5190,99,2384,124528,2394],"class_list":["post-221286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-average-joes","tag-baseball","tag-big-market-dodgers","tag-blake-snell","tag-brewer","tag-dodger-stadium","tag-good-team","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-mlb","tag-more-game","tag-pat-murphy","tag-payroll","tag-season","tag-sports","tag-time","tag-world-series-champion","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221286","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=221286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}