Christian Yelich and the Brewers looking to get past Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers in NLCS sequel

MILWAUKEE (AP) — All along, Christian Yelich felt this was going to be part of the road for the Milwaukee Brewers.

It was always going to be the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers — with their consecutive World Series titles and a payroll that casts a long shadow over Yelich and the small-market Brewers.

“We’ve been expecting having to play them in this round since spring training, in the regular season,” Yelich said Saturday. “You kind of just know that’s what’s going to happen.”

The 2026 NL Championship Series is a sequel, with Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers taking on Jackson Chourio and the Brewers. Los Angeles swept Milwaukee in last year's NLCS on the way to the franchise's 26th NL pennant and ninth World Series championship. The Dodgers also eliminated the Brewers in the NLCS in 2018 and the wild-card round in 2020 .

Game 1 on Sunday night features a pair of stingy aces. Tarik Skubal goes for Los Angeles after the two-time Cy Young Award winner was acquired in an Aug. 1 trade with Detroit, and Jacob Misiorowski — the front-runner for the NL Cy Young Award — starts for Milwaukee.

The return engagement for the NLCS also shines a light on the competing arguments at the center of MLB's collective bargaining negotiations. Baseball’s five-year labor contract expires Dec. 1, and management is expected to lock out players in a confrontation that could affect the 2027 season.

The Dodgers went 100-62 this season and won the NL West for the fifth straight year after they had an opening-day payroll of $323.6 million, second only to the New York Mets. Milwaukee's opening-day payroll of $125.9 million ranked 20th, and the Brewers set a franchise record with a major league-best 103 wins on the way to their fourth consecutive Central title.

“We’re focused on trying to win, and I think we have for a while,” Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said. “Regardless of what the economics look like, the guys in there believe, and so do I.”

Milwaukee was shut down by Los Angeles in last year's playoffs, hitting .118 while managing just one run in each game in the sweep. Ohtani punctuated the series by swatting three solo homers and striking out 10 over six shutout innings in Game 4.

Ohtani won't pitch this time around because of injuries, and the Japanese slugger went 2 for 13 with four strikeouts in the four-game NL Division Series against Atlanta. But the Dodgers still have a formidable rotation, fronted by Skubal and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

“Every night when you play these guys, you know you’re going to face a great pitcher, a Cy Young-caliber pitcher,” Yelich said.

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