Something had to give. You could see it on Dave Roberts’ face as he walked back to the dugout on Monday night in Milwaukee, the Dodgers having just dropped Game 2 of the NLCS 7-4 to the Brewers, falling into a 0-2 hole that no two-time defending champion ever expects to be in. Three days ago this team looked like destiny. Now its manager is openly discussing whether Shohei Ohtani should sit out Game 3.
Let that sink in. Shohei Ohtani. On the bench. In October. For a franchise chasing a third straight World Series title that no National League team has ever won. This is where the Dodgers are.
The night the Dodgers ran out of answers
Game 2 was supposed to be the Dodgers’ night. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, owner of a 2.14 postseason ERA over 63 innings, took the mound against a Brewers lineup that has made a habit of wrecking good pitching. What happened instead was stunning: Yamamoto was gone after just 2.2 innings, tagged for four hits, two walks, and three earned runs on 75 pitches, striking out only one batter before being chased.
The offense was worse. The Dodgers managed just three hits all night. Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman, and Kyle Tucker were the only players to reach on their own merit. Every batter from one through seven in the lineup struck out at least once. Ohtani himself was punched out twice, and by the time the ninth inning rolled around, the 7-4 final felt like a scoreboard kindness.
It was the second straight night the Dodgers looked like the underdog in a series they were supposed to own. Sunday’s 2-1 Game 1 loss had been a heartbreaker, with Brice Turang’s home run and Caleb Durbin’s go-ahead single slipping through their fingers. Monday’s loss was something different. It looked like a team that has run out of ideas against an opponent that is simply better right now.
The Ohtani problem nobody wants to talk about
Here is the number that changes everything: 3-for-20. That is Ohtani’s postseason line through two games of the NLCS, with seven strikeouts. Three singles. Nothing else. Sports Illustrated’s Dodgers notes this week laid out the full slump picture, and it is grim.
And it is not just October. Ohtani has not hit a home run since August 18. Since August 19, a stretch of 24 games, he is hitting .157 with one RBI and 36 strikeouts. As one viral post put it this week, this is by far the worst slump of his career.
That context is what makes what happened after Game 2 so significant. Speaking to The Athletic, Roberts did not dodge the question. “He doesn’t feel great,” the manager said. “I think for me, it’s having a conversation with him tomorrow, kind of try to figure out what’s best for him, what’s best for us. He certainly has earned that conversation and deserves it.”
Read that again. A manager does not bring up a “conversation” about what is best for a player in the middle of the NLCS unless the option of sitting him is genuinely on the table. Roberts has spent years defending his stars at every turn. This is the most candid he has ever been about Ohtani’s struggles, and the timing tells you how serious it is.
Why Wednesday is everything
Game 3 is Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, a battle of southpaws with the series shifting to Los Angeles for the next three games. That is the lifeline the Dodgers are clinging to. Home field. Three straight games in front of their own fans. A chance to turn two bad nights in Milwaukee into a footnote.
Magic Johnson, a part-owner of the franchise, took to X on Monday night to say exactly that: the Dodgers are heading home for the next three games and the series is far from over. He is right in theory. But theory is all the Dodgers have right now, because the Brewers have been the better team in every phase of this series.
Milwaukee’s story deserves its moment here. The Brewers won 103 games this season, the best record in baseball, and they have played like it for two straight nights. They are relentless, deep, and completely unbothered by the Dodgers’ brand name. The favorites are being outplayed, and it is not close.
The comeback case is real, and it is spectacular
Here is the thing about panicking over a 0-2 deficit: the Dodgers are the last franchise you should count out in this exact spot. They have come back from 0-2 to win a postseason series five times in franchise history. The list reads like a museum of October miracles: the 1955 World Series against the Yankees, the 1965 World Series against the Twins, the 1981 NLDS against the Astros, the 1981 World Series against the Yankees again, and the 2020 NLCS against the Braves.
That 2020 comeback is the one that should keep Brewers fans up at night. The Dodgers trailed Atlanta 3-1 in that NLCS and won three straight elimination games. This team, this manager, this core, has done the hardest thing in October before.
David Ortiz said on Fox Sports that he thinks the Dodgers are in serious trouble, and after two games in Milwaukee it is hard to argue with Big Papi. The lineup looks lost. The ace just got shelled. The best player on the planet might be riding the bench on Wednesday. But if there is one franchise in baseball history that knows what 0-2 feels like and what it takes to come back from it, it is this one.
Meanwhile, in the American League
The Dodgers are not the only team with everything on the line this week. The Guardians stole Game 1 of the ALCS 7-3 from the Rays in St. Petersburg on Monday behind a late offensive explosion, and Game 2 is tonight at 8 p.m. ET. The winner of Brewers-Dodgers gets the winner of that series in a World Series that starts Friday, October 23.
But first, Los Angeles has to figure out whether its season ends at home this weekend or whether this 0-2 hole becomes chapter one of another comeback story. Everything hinges on Wednesday. The pitching matchup, the lineup card, and one very difficult conversation between a manager and his superstar. For more on October’s biggest baseball storylines, follow our US Sports coverage.
Three games at Dodger Stadium. Three chances to save a three-peat. And maybe, for the first time in the Shohei Ohtani era, one night where the most famous player in baseball watches from the bench. The full NLCS and ALCS schedule and TV info shows just how little margin for error remains.
