Los Angeles — At the great Dodgers dugout, nothing was left.
Only a handful of players stood on the top level of their third-base dugout, arms stretched across the railings, which they had climbed far more often in celebration than they had bowed in defeat in 10 years.
They did not use these rails. Most of them, therefore, did not give indignity.
Because this old group has come up. He also knows defeat, believe it or not, even after spending the better part of decades ruling baseball like emperors.
There was no need to watch the Brewers, a young club that had recently swept the Goliath in four games, celebrating a victory in Los Angeles alone.
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So the Dodgers gathered their gear after Thursday’s 6-4 loss in Game 4, went down the dugout steps and retreated to their clubs to lick the wounds that allowed them to forget the win long ago.
“We’re short,” said Freddie Freeman. “It sucks. It really does. We’re asking for eight months to come up short. It really hurts towards the end. But we’re giving it our all. Sometimes I just played.”
Outplayed? The term Dodgers was not supposed to be dodgers.
Not after two straight years of ruling baseball with an iron hand, pulling the game against their will on the way to back-to-back World Series titles. Starting this decade with Mookie Betts in February 2020 and culminating with Tarik Skubal in August 2026, this behemoth has, in short, bought, traded and developed talent better than anyone else in the game.
The Dodger blue print meant. That’s because that’s them.
Another championship felt inevitable.
But nothing is necessary in sports. Salary does not dictate words. Not performance.
Blake Snell sat in the locker next to his good friend and teammate, Tarik Skubal, telling a story that needed no words. Among them were four Cy Young Awards. Two thirds. Both started in this series, neither earned a victory.
Both wound up in a losing end against the Brewers who refused to give up the club. A young bunch who have proven resilience is not measured by reputation or salary.
“It’s very difficult [to win]”Skubal said.” A lot of really good teams, a lot of really talented players across the league. It’s so hard to win. Seeing what the Dodgers have done in the last two years, it’s easy to believe that, but it really isn’t. The hardest thing to do in baseball is win the World Series.”
The weight of another team’s reputation means nothing if you refuse to carry it.
And perhaps this series was more than anything else. Negation.
Milwaukee denied that he was scared of getting a record one year ago in the same round against the same team.
They didn’t go against Skubal in Game 1, Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 or Snell in Game 3.
They remained stubborn. Tough
And Game 4 captured that defiance more vividly than the previous three combined.
For months, Los Angeles waited for the release of its superstar, Shohei Ohtani.
Hobbled and slumping, he hadn’t homered from Aug. 18. In all this a piece is missing. Like at least. His greatness overshadowed so many of the Dodgers’ mistakes throughout the year in the Fall Classic.
So, in the bottom of the second inning of Milwaukee’s wild game, with Los Angeles already leading by a run, Ohtani hit a three-run homer off Dustin May, extending the Dodgers’ lead to four.
He roared to his dugout. The Los Angeles crowd roared with him. Throwing his bat into the air, hallelujah.
Finally. it was back.
He sang the song that the Dodger Stadium fans had been waiting for.
But as it is.
At the brewery, however, it makes no difference.
Milwaukee scored two runs in the fourth against Tyler Glasnow. Finally knocking him out of the contest after just 4 innings. Two more in the fifth. A Garrett Mitchell solo shot in the sixth broke the tie, and David Hamilton singled home Miguel Rojas in the ninth to send the Dodgers into retirement.
These are the Brewers misfits. That team is a Goliath in its own right, even if it doesn’t come with names.
“They have a bunch of hall of famers,” manager Pat Murphy said. “We have a bunch of gamers.”
And just like that, the Dodger dynasty was crushed.
“It was tough, man,” Betts said of his team’s streak of a triple-double, only accomplished in 50 years by the Y2K Yankees. “It was a lot. Words can’t really describe it. It’s part of the game. It’s part of life.”
The Dodgers will have their issues moving forward, most notably around Shohei Ohtani. He’s focused on pitching next season, he said postgame, but he’s unsure if he’ll need a hand on his injured right bicep and gimpy left knee.
“That’s hard to say,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “It’s something that will be analyzed and discussed in the offseason, and see if he can do it.”
The last one brought tears to Rojas’ eyes. The World Series hero just last year found himself at the opposite end of his career.
A cloud of disappointment hung over the Dodgers clubhouse. The road to a triple seemed so clear after the Braves were eliminated in the NLDS. LA has been the 2026 title favorite since the Commissioners lifted the trophy 50 weeks ago. The distinction now belongs to the Brewers, who will face either the Rays or the Rangers in the World Series.
Who would have thought that the Milwaukee dream would be so cruelly uprooted? Will four games be all the Brewers need to bring the baseball empire to its knees?
So there was no need for the Brewers to celebrate. We don’t need to see the kind of Jackson Chourio warned around the track in the abrupt abundance, as he mentioned the last hand in left field.
Because this Dodger team had seen it all.