Dodgers Face Brewers, Guardians Face Rays for the Pennants

Update: Brewers lead the NLCS 2-0, Guardians take the ALCS opener

Updated 23:45 UTC, Tuesday: Milwaukee beat Los Angeles 7-4 on Monday, Oct. 12 to take a 2-0 lead in the National League Championship Series. William Contreras tied the game with a home run in the fifth inning, drove in the go-ahead run with a single in the sixth, and finished with three hits and three RBIs. Christian Yelich added two RBIs. The Brewers bullpen retired all 15 batters it faced and gave up no hit over five innings. Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed three runs in 2 and 2/3 innings. The series moves to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday.

Cleveland beat Tampa Bay 7-3 on the road on Monday, Oct. 12 in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. The Guardians, who beat the Chicago White Sox in five games in the Division Series, hold a 1-0 lead. Game 2 is Tuesday night in Tampa Bay, before the series shifts to Cleveland.

Baseball is down to its final four. The National League Championship Series pairs the Milwaukee Brewers, the top seed, against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the two time defending World Series champions. The American League Championship Series pairs the Tampa Bay Rays, the top seed, against the Cleveland Guardians, who came back from two games down to win their division series on Saturday. Both series are best of seven. The winners meet in the World Series.

It is a clean bracket. In each league, the No. 1 seed plays the No. 2 seed. In each league, one club is chasing history and the other is chasing a first.

The NLCS: a rematch with a grudge

Milwaukee and Los Angeles were the only two teams in baseball to reach 100 wins in the regular season. Both won their division series in four games. The Brewers beat the San Diego Padres 3-1. The Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 3-1.

The recent history hangs over this series. Los Angeles swept Milwaukee in last year's NLCS and also beat the Brewers in the 2018 NLCS. Milwaukee has one World Series appearance in franchise history, in 1982, when the club played in the American League. The Dodgers are trying to win a third straight World Series, a three peat no team has managed in a quarter century.

The pitching story starts with Jacob Misiorowski. The Brewers named him their starter for the first game of the series, and preview coverage billed a possible duel with Tarik Skubal as close to unprecedented for a series opener. Los Angeles carries the deeper October resume and the bigger names, Shohei Ohtani among them, and preview writers have flagged Dodger consistency, Ohtani included, as the open question. Milwaukee's answer all year has been balance and a home crowd that treats this round as a referendum on 2025.

The ALCS: the comeback kids meet the machine

Tampa Bay had the quietest path of the four. The Rays swept the New York Yankees in three games in the division series, winning 1-0, 5-2 and 4-3, to reach their first ALCS since 2020 and the third in club history. Kevin Cash's team is after a third trip to the World Series and the first title in franchise history.

Cleveland took the hard road. The Guardians lost the first two games of their series against the Chicago White Sox, 3-0 and 4-3, then won three straight, 9-3, 9-5 and 2-0 in Saturday's Game 5, to take the series 3-2. Gavin Williams tied Cleveland's postseason single game strikeout record in the run, with 12 strikeouts in a start where he flirted with a no hitter, according to series coverage. Early ALCS coverage carried the headline that Cleveland stayed hot with an upset win in Game 1 against the Rays. Tampa Bay now has to answer at home in a long series, which is the spot its rotation depth was built for.

How they got here

• NLDS: Brewers beat Padres 3-1. Dodgers beat Braves 3-1
• ALDS: Rays swept Yankees 3-0. Guardians beat White Sox 3-2 after trailing 0-2
• Game 5 ALDS score: Guardians 2, White Sox 0
• Regular season: Brewers and Dodgers were the only 100 win teams
• Last year's NLCS: Dodgers swept Brewers
• Brewers World Series appearances: one, in 1982. Rays World Series appearances: two, still seeking a first title

Why this round pulls a crowd

Championship series baseball sells itself, but this year's pairings carry extra weight. The NLCS is a repeat meeting between the two best teams in the league by record, with the loser of last year's sweep at home and angry about it. The ALCS pairs a top seed that barely broke a sweat with the hottest comeback story of the month. Star power is spread across all four rosters, and both leagues can point to a genuine ace level pitching matchup in the opening games. For casual fans who tune in only in October, this is the week the sport makes its case, two series running side by side, each with a clear villain, a clear underdog and no filler games left on the schedule.

What each team needs

Milwaukee needs its rotation to hold the Dodger lineup in the big innings and needs at least a split before the series shifts. Los Angeles needs its stars to play like stars for seven games, not four. Tampa Bay needs the version of itself that suffocated the Yankees, low scoring, clean defense, no free bases. Cleveland needs to keep manufacturing runs the way it did in the comeback, because it will not outslug anyone left in the field.

What happens next

The championship round runs through this week in the 2-3-2 format, with the higher seed holding home field. Every game from here is a season lever. One injury, one short start, one bullpen game gone wrong can flip a series between teams this close. The World Series matchup will be set by the end of the round, and for two of these four clubs, the season ends four wins short of the stage they have been pointing at since spring.