The Dodgers visit the Brewers to kick off the 2025 National League Championship Series Monday night at 8 PM EDT. The Dodgers won two of the last five World Series titles, while the Brewers never won a Fall Classic. The Dodgers won 22 modern NL pennants, while Milwaukee won one AL pennant in it’s previous 56 years as an MLB team.
The Brewers won all six game played between the two teams this season, outscoring the Dodgers 31-16.
The following table compares the offenses of the two teams and where they ranked in the NL in each category:
| 2025 NL Ranks | Dodgers | Brewers |
| Runs per Game | 5.09 (1st) | 4.98 (2nd) |
| Batting Average | .253 (3rd) | .258 (1st) |
| On-Base Average | .327 (3rd) | .332 (1st) |
| Slugging Percentage | .441 (1st) | .403 (6th) |
| Home Runs | 244 (1st) | 166 (9th) |
| Stolen Base Percentage | 77.9 (4th) | 75.6 (11th) |
| BABIP | .289 (12th) | .305 (1st) |
This series pits the top two offenses in the NL against each other. The Brewers performed the best in the league at getting on base, while the Dodgers dominated in power. The teams reach base in similar ways. Both own relatively high batting averages that they supplement with a high number of walks. The difference comes from slugging, where the Dodgers lead by 38 points in average due to 78 more home runs. That’s an extra home run every other game. Even though the Brewer put batters on base at a higher clip, the extra power allow the Dodgers to score those runners more easily. Note that all the home runs helped elevate the Dodgers BA despite a low BABIP.
The following table compares pitching and defesene:
| 2025 NL Ranks | Dodgers | Brewers |
| Runs Allowed per Game | 4.22 (7th) | 3.91 (2nd) |
| Earned Run Average | 3.95 (8th) | 3.59 (1st) |
| Strikeouts per 9 IP | 9.4 (1st) | 8.9 (3rd) |
| Walks per 9 IP | 3.5 (12th) | 3.3 (10th) |
| Home Runs per 200 IP | 24.3 (6th) | 23.3 (4th) |
| Defensive Efficiency | .704 (6th) | .709 (4th) |
For the season as a whole, the Brewers did a much better job of preventing runs than the Dodgers. Notice that based on earned runs, the Brewers led the NL, but in terms of all runs, Milwaukee ranked second. They rank fairly high in strikeout, home run rates, and turning balls in play into outs. The Dodgers owned the highest strikeout rate in the league, but the Brewers are close, and the Dodgers were close behind in the other categories. The gap between the runs allowed rate between the two teams is a bit bigger than I would have thought.
This is one time that the overall numbers may not tell the full story. The Dodgers recovered good pitchers from injury late in the season, most importantly Shohei Ohtani and Blake Snell. The Brewers lost Brandon Woodruff to an injury after he made a triumphant return to the rotation. The Two teams are closer on the pitching and defense side of the equation that they appear in the table.
The Dodgers high strikeout rate should work against a team that is good at putting the ball in play, but not always. The 2002 Angels were able to get balls in play against the high K Yankees pitchers and advanced to the World Series. Meanwhile, the Brewers ability to prevent home runs may take away the major pillar of the Dodgers offense.
Once again, I don’t see a clear favorite here. Once again, I’ll give the Brewers a 51% chance of taking the series due to the home field advantage. Most of the series looked close on paper this season (maybe Dodgers-Reds was the exception). That’s probably the reason we’ve only lost three games to series ending in less than the maximum duration.