Milwaukee watched the Dodgers celebrate. A year later, it sent the sweep back.

In 2025 the Dodgers swept the Brewers out of the NLCS. In 2026 the Brewers returned it game for game. What happens next has a precedent, a promise from Ohtani, and a date: March 25, 2027.

The moment Jake Bauers kept from October 2025 was not a pitch. It was the Dodgers celebrating after they swept Milwaukee out of the National League Championship Series, a series Shohei Ohtani finished by hitting three home runs and striking out ten batters in the same game. Bauers called watching that celebration “a little bit eye-opening.” The Brewers took it into 2026 as motivation.

The Dodgers took something heavier into the rematch. They were two-time defending champions chasing a third straight World Series, which no team has won since the 1998–2000 Yankees. The regular season gave them every reason to believe: 100 wins, a 13th NL West title in 14 seasons, and 4,034,219 people through the gates, a franchise record. It was also their first season since 2007 without Clayton Kershaw. They beat Atlanta three games to one in the Division Series and met Milwaukee again.

Game 1 put Tarik Skubal against Jacob Misiorowski. Andy Pages singled Ohtani home in the second. Brice Turang answered with a solo home run off Skubal in the fourth, Luis Lara singled in the go-ahead run in the fifth, and in the ninth, after two walks, Trevor Megill got Mookie Betts for the last out. Brewers 2, Dodgers 1.

Game 2 began with a Dodgers lead too, and William Contreras took it apart by himself: a tying home run in the fifth, the go-ahead single in the sixth. It ended 7–4 with Aaron Ashby striking out Miguel Rojas, in what Rojas would later confirm was the last season of his playing career.

Game 3 opened with Jackson Chourio hitting Blake Snell’s first pitch over the wall. Will Smith’s bases-loaded double in the sixth put the Dodgers back in front, 2–1. In the seventh, Bauers worked Snell for eleven pitches and hit the last one out for a two-run lead. Garrett Mitchell homered on the next at-bat. Brewers 6, Dodgers 2.

Game 4, on October 15 at Dodger Stadium, was the one the Dodgers seemed to have. Ohtani hit a three-run home run in the second — his first since August 18 — and it was 4–0. Mitchell’s solo shot in the sixth made it 5–4 Milwaukee, David Hamilton homered in the ninth, and Ashby finished three scoreless innings for the save.

The series in two numbers: the Dodgers went 4 for 27 with runners in scoring position, and Milwaukee out-homered them 7–1. Ohtani’s Game 4 shot was the only one; he hit .192 across eight playoff games. They led in all four games and lost all four.

Bauers was named series MVP. The Brewers went on to their first World Series since 1982, against Tampa Bay, opening October 23 in Milwaukee. The Dodgers went home with a 14th straight postseason appearance, tying the record the Atlanta Braves set from 1991 to 2005 — and the same 4–0 they had handed Milwaukee a year earlier.

The last time someone swept the Dodgers in October was Arizona, three games to none in the 2023 Division Series. That December the Dodgers signed Shohei Ohtani to a ten-year contract and Yoshinobu Yamamoto to a twelve-year one. They won the next World Series over the Yankees, and the one after that over the Blue Jays. This franchise answers a playoff loss the same way every time: by spending in the offseason.

This winter’s answer starts with the man the Brewers got the better of. “They really exposed parts of me,” Ohtani said after Game 4, through his interpreter, Will Ireton. Asked whether he would pitch in 2027: “Yes, definitely.” He said he would go “back to the drawing board, in terms of treatment, training program.” Dave Roberts is signed through 2029. The open question is Tarik Skubal, the ace the Dodgers traded Detroit for on August 1 and handed the ball in Game 1 — he is a free agent the moment the World Series ends.

And the first answer comes on March 25, 2027, at Dodger Stadium, against the Atlanta Braves: the team the Dodgers beat this October, and the team whose postseason record they just tied. The two clubs that share baseball’s longest postseason streak open the season on the same field.