Brewers get just enough off Tarik Skubal, beat Dodgers in NLCS Game 1

MILWAUKEE — First and foremost, the Dodgers wanted Tarik Skubal on their team. When they pursued him at the trade deadline, they saw him as the rare player who could improve their odds of winning a third straight World Series.

It didn’t hurt that by acquiring him they prevented other postseason contenders, including the Milwaukee Brewers, from landing the two-time Cy Young Award winner. The Dodgers guaranteed that they wouldn’t have to face him in October.

“I’m sure it’s in the back of your head, the teams that are interested,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said Sunday before the Dodgers’ 2-1 loss to the Brewers in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. “Certainly not a driver, but not nothing either. As far as how happy I am, I am very happy it’s Skubal versus [Jacob Misiorowski] and not Miz and Skubal [for the Brewers] in the next two.”

That sentiment rang even truer when the Dodgers dropped Game 1 at American Family Field, despite forcing Misiorowski, the NL Cy Young favorite, out of the game in just 4⅓ innings — and despite having Skubal, who lasted five innings but gave up two runs in a fine effort, on their side.

In a role reversal, the Dodgers, who scored almost exclusively via the home run in the first round, pulled ahead with a pesky approach at the plate.

Designated hitter Shohei Ohtani opened a consequential second inning with a four-pitch walk. Then Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages hit opposite-field singles to move Ohtani all the way around the bases and give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.

Taking a similar “grind him out” approach to the one they deployed against Braves ace Chris Sale in Game 3 of the NLDS, the Dodgers forced Misiorowski to throw 35 pitches in the inning — 10 alone to Kyle Tucker, who worked a walk.

By the third inning, Misiorowski’s fastball velocity, which touched 104 mph, had dropped to double digits. And though the Dodgers didn’t score again against him, they continued to rack up his pitch count. By the time he exited with one out in the fifth, it was at 94.

The Brewers, known for their peskiness, instead tied the game with one swing against Skubal. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Brice Turang got the barrel of his bat to an inside sinker and lifted it over the fence, into the Brewers bullpen in left-center field.

If Turang, who went 2-for-16 in the NLDS, is heating up at the plate, that could be bad news for the Dodgers.

Though the Brewers have players who can hit home runs, they pulled ahead the next inning with a sequence more closely aligned with their identity.

Skubal walked Garrett Mitchell on five pitches. Brewers rookie Cooper Pratt moved him into scoring position with a sacrifice bunt. And then Luis Lara sent a ground-ball single through the middle of the infield to drive in the go-ahead run.

Skubal battled traffic to get out of the inning without allowing another run. But in such a tight game, that marked the end of his start.

The American Family Field atmosphere added an extra charge to the close contest. The home crowd was perhaps its loudest (until an ear-splitting cheer at the final out) when it took issue with a balk call against Misiorowski. It looked as if he had picked off Hernández to end the fourth inning, but Hernández was instead awarded second base.

That play was still seared into their collective memory when Dodgers left-handed reliever Alex Vesia picked off Jack Bauers at first base. Brewers fans shouted “balk,” over and over.

The bullpens battled to a scoreless draw, the Dodgers’ last stand falling flat after Tucker and pinch-hitting rookie Josue De Paula drew a pair of two-out walks. So the edge the Brewers gained against Skubal held.

The road doesn’t get much easier for the Dodgers in Game 2, when they’ll face right-hander Logan Henderson, who held the Dodgers to one run in seven innings when the Brewers came to Los Angeles in August. But imagine if instead the Brewers had out-bid the Dodgers and they had to go through Skubal first.

“It would look really different,” manager Dave Roberts said Saturday. “What those guys do — they had the best record in baseball. Certainly when you’re talking about a seven-game series, to see Tarik on the other side … the series would look a lot different.”