The Milwaukee Brewers arrive at Dodger Stadium this week carrying the best record in the National League, setting up a four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers that could determine who gets a first-round bye in October. Milwaukee enters at 74-47, half a game behind Tampa Bay for the best record in all of baseball, according to True Blue LA. The Dodgers sit at 73-48, one game back, while the Atlanta Braves match Los Angeles at 73-48 as well, per the Los Angeles Times' Dodgers Dugout newsletter.
The stakes go beyond bragging rights. Under MLB's playoff format, the three division winners automatically qualify for the postseason, but the division winner with the worst record among them must play in a best-of-three wild card series before advancing, while the top two seeds skip straight to the Division Series with a bye, the Times explained. That bye would let a team set its pitching rotation exactly as it wants heading into the postseason, which begins for bye teams on October 3, according to True Blue LA. The team stuck with the worst record among division winners would instead open the wild card round September 29 through October 1.
Head-to-head record serves as the first tiebreaker if teams finish level, and the season series between these two clubs has been lopsided in different directions. The Dodgers are 2-1 against Milwaukee this year after taking two of three games in Milwaukee from May 22-24, according to True Blue LA. The Times noted the Dodgers are also 1-2 against Atlanta, meaning Los Angeles likely needs to at least split this four-game set with the Brewers to preserve a tiebreaker edge, with three games against the Braves still remaining August 25-27 in Atlanta.
The series arrives with extra weight given recent history. Milwaukee held the best record in MLB and home-field advantage throughout last year's postseason, only to be swept by the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series after winning all six regular-season meetings between the two clubs in 2025, per True Blue LA. It's a pattern that has defined the Brewers' recent postseasons broadly: the Times' Dodgers Dugout column tallied that Milwaukee has reached the playoffs in seven of the last eight seasons but has advanced to the NLCS only twice, losing both times — to the Dodgers in 2018 and again in 2025. In other trips, the Brewers were eliminated in the wild card round in 2019, 2020, 2023 and 2024, and lost in the NLDS to Atlanta in 2021, missing the postseason entirely in 2022.
Both teams enter this series in different form. The Dodgers just swept the Kansas City Royals in three close games, per True Blue LA, but manager Dave Roberts sounded an urgent note afterward given the club's broader stretch. "Thinking about it on the plane [Sunday], we're a wild card team right now, and we gotta get going, and play with urgency," Roberts said Monday, according to True Blue LA, adding that the Dodgers have gone just 14-17 since July 4 even with the Kansas City sweep factored in. Milwaukee, meanwhile, comes in having just been swept in San Diego, dropping a 4-3, 12-inning heartbreaker to the Padres on Wednesday, according to Heavy.com.
Statistically, the teams are close to even, per the Times' breakdown through Tuesday's games. The Dodgers lead in runs per game (5.02 to 4.91), batting average (.261 to .252) and slugging percentage (.428 to .396), and hold a clear power edge with 152 home runs to Milwaukee's 110, ranked 30th in the majors. The Brewers counter with more speed and small-ball elements, leading in doubles (214 to 198), triples (20 to 12) and stolen bases (118 to 46), and posting more than double the sacrifice bunts of Los Angeles, 29 to 12. On the mound, Milwaukee holds a narrow team ERA edge, 3.54 to 3.72, with a stronger bullpen ERA of 3.51 compared to the Dodgers' 4.02, though the two rotations are nearly identical at 3.54 and 3.56.
The pitching matchups for the series, as confirmed by both Heavy.com and True Blue LA, pit each team's front-line arms against one another across four days. Thursday features Roki Sasaki (5-5, 4.54 ERA, 106 strikeouts) against Shane Drohan (6-4, 3.87 ERA, 93 strikeouts) at 7:10 p.m., airing on SportsNet LA and MLB Network. Friday brings Yoshinobu Yamamoto (11-7, 2.65 ERA, 127 strikeouts) against Robert Gasser (3-4, 4.57 ERA, 61 strikeouts), also at 7:10 p.m. on SportsNet LA. Saturday's game, set for 4:15 p.m. on Fox, matches Justin Wrobleski (11-4, 3.44 ERA, 94 strikeouts) against NL Cy Young candidate Jacob Misiorowski (11-5, 1.76 ERA, 204 strikeouts). The series closes Sunday at 1:10 p.m. on SportsNet LA with Tarik Skubal (7-6, 2.93 ERA, 128 strikeouts) facing Logan Henderson (6-2, 2.88 ERA, 69 strikeouts).
The Times' Dodgers Dugout column noted it was something of a surprise that Milwaukee didn't pursue Skubal more aggressively at the trade deadline, which could have paired him with Misiorowski atop the rotation; instead the Brewers acquired former Dodger Dustin May. The column also pointed out that finishing outside the top two seeds isn't necessarily fatal — the Dodgers had to play in the wild card round last season and still won the World Series, whereas in 2024 they had the bye and home-field advantage in every round on their way to a title.
The Dodgers also enter the series monitoring the health of Freddie Freeman, who is considered day-to-day after a scary fall down the dugout stairs on the first-base side during Tuesday's win over Kansas City, according to Heavy.com. With Atlanta also at 73-48 and the Chicago Cubs lurking at 71-50, per True Blue LA's standings snapshot, every game in this Dodgers-Brewers set carries direct weight in the race for the top two National League seeds.
