LOS ANGELES -- For 363 days, the Brewers dreamed of a different ending. On Thursday night, they wrote it.
The script? Familiar enough. A National League Championship Series sweep culminating at Dodger Stadium. Only this time, it was the Brewers who poured from the first-base dugout, celebrating an NL pennant decades in the making -- and celebrating in the very ballpark where their previous season had come to such an unceremonious end.
The two-time defending champion Dodgers have been dethroned. For the first time in 44 years, the Brewers are heading to the World Series. They beat Los Angeles, 6-4, in Game 4 on Thursday night. Next week, Milwaukee will host the Fall Classic for the first time since 1982.
And could this ending have been any more fitting?
Three times in the last decade, the Brewers had been expelled from the postseason by Los Angeles. A year ago, they were swept away with relative ease, as the Dodgers set a course for their second consecutive World Series title. It went unspoken, but all summer, the Brewers seemed to know: If they were going to get where they wanted to go, this was the team they needed to beat.
Thursday’s clincher did not come easy. Why should it? These Brewers don’t do easy. They fell behind 4-0 in the second inning. Dodger Stadium shook when Shohei Ohtani’s titanic three-run blast landed deep in the right-field pavilion.
But the Brewers did what these Brewers do. They answered. Two runs in the fourth. Two more in the fifth. Garrett Mitchell’s go-ahead home run in the sixth. Three innings later, the Brewers were celebrating a first in MLB history: They became the first team to sweep the very same team that had eliminated them via sweep in the previous postseason.