Shohei Ohtani finally got one out of the yard, and it still wasn't enough.
In the second inning of NLCS Game 4, Ohtani turned on a pitch from Brewers right-hander Dustin May and drove a three-run homer out, snapping a homerless stretch that had stretched across 25 games. It was the kind of swing that usually changes a series. This time it just delayed the inevitable by a few innings.
Milwaukee closed out the sweep anyway, finishing a four-game dismantling of the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the National League pennant. The Brewers are headed to the World Series for the first time since 1982. Forty-four years is a long wait by any measure, and this group ended it by knocking off a team that had won the last two championships.
what happened to shohei ohtani's homerless drought
Twenty-five games is a long stretch of silence for a hitter built like Ohtani, and the drought had become its own storyline inside a series the Dodgers were already losing. He broke it against May with a three-run shot that briefly flipped the mood in Los Angeles. But one swing against a sweep that had been building for three straight games was never going to be the whole story, and it wasn't.
brewers world series history explained
checked the almanac on this one: Milwaukee's only other World Series trip came in 1982, when the Brewers lost in seven games to the Cardinals. Everyone who remembers that run is a lot older now, and most of this current roster wasn't alive for it. A 44-year gap is the kind of number that makes a franchise feel like it's been waiting its whole life for one series, because in a real sense it has.
The sweep wasn't a fluke dressed up as a storyline. Milwaukee took all four games, which means the pitching staff did its job across the board and the lineup found enough against a Dodgers rotation that had carried the last two titles. Ohtani's homer was the loudest moment the Dodgers managed in the series, and it still came in a game they lost.
what's next for the dodgers after elimination
For Los Angeles, the offseason questions start now. A roster built to win back to back championships got swept by a team that hadn't been to the World Series since before most of its own stars were born. That's the kind of result that reshapes a winter, from the front office down to the clubhouse. The particulars of what changes will play out over the coming weeks, but the baseline fact is simple: the two-time champs are out, and they didn't get particularly close.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, waits to find out who it's playing. The American League side is still being settled, with Cleveland holding a series edge on Tampa Bay. Whoever comes out of that gets a Brewers team that just proved it could beat a juggernaut four straight times when it mattered most.
What I'm Watching
The ALCS still has to finish before we know Milwaukee's World Series opponent, and that's the next real marker on the calendar. Beyond that, I'll be watching how the Dodgers talk about this winter once the shock wears off, because a sweep like this usually says more than a single bad series.