MILWAUKEE – Few teams have a pitching lineage as long as that of the Los Angeles Dodgers franchise. With these playoffs, Blake Snell extends this line of stars by one unit.
Snell dominated the Milwaukee Brewers for eight innings Monday, leading Los Angeles to a 2-1 victory in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series in front of a sold-out crowd at American Family Field.
“It felt so good from the start,” said Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose sixth-inning homer broke a scoreless tie. “Sometimes it takes an inning or two for someone to settle down. [Tonight] It was from the start.”
Snell held Milwaukee to one hit in eight complete innings for only the second time in a career that earned him two Cy Young Awards. He struck out 10 and threw out the only baserunner he allowed — Caleb Durbin, who singled in the third.
Snell became the first pitcher to face the minimum eight innings in a playoff game since Don Larsen pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. The only longer outing of Snell’s career was the no-hitter he threw for the San Francisco Giants on August 2, 2024. Has he ever felt as locked in as he did on Monday?
“The no-hitter, yeah,” Snell joked.
Snell improved to 3-0 in a postseason in which no other starting pitcher recorded two wins. He is the second Dodgers pitcher to win his first three postseason starts for the franchise, joining Don Sutton (1974).
If Los Angeles continues to win, Snell will have more chances to add to his numbers, but for now, his 0.86 ERA over three outings is second-best for a Dodgers left-hander in the postseason (minimum 20 innings), trailing only Sandy Koufax’s legendary run (0.38 ERA over three starts) in the 1965 World Series.
That’s the kind of company Snell knew he’d keep when he signed with the Dodgers before the season.
“Even playing against them, watching them, it was always in the back of my mind, like I wanted to be a Dodger and play on this team,” Snell said. “Being here now is a dream come true. I couldn’t wish for anything more.”
Snell’s gem continued the streak of dominant starting pitchers for the Dodgers that began in the final month of the regular season and propelled a postseason run for the defending champions, positioning them for a repeat despite an offense that at times struggled to put up runs in the postseason.
Dodgers starters are 6-1 with a 1.65 ERA so far in the postseason, recording six quality starts in Los Angeles’ seven games.
“Our starting pitching over the last seven or eight weeks has been — I don’t know if you can write enough words in your stories about our starting pitching,” Freeman said. “It’s really been amazing. They seem to feed off each other.”
But no Dodgers starter is on a trajectory comparable to that of Snell, who hopes to win his first championship ring with the team he lost to as a member of the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2020 World Series.
Despite Snell’s dominance, the Dodgers still had to withstand a ninth-inning push from the stubborn Brewers and realize that the series was only just beginning. Yet with the way Snell rolls, he brings up the names of Dodgers present and past, like Koufax, Kershaw, Sutton, Valenzuela and Hershiser.
“I feel like I was pretty consistent throughout the playoffs,” Snell said. “Different outings, but eight innings, were deeper. The last three I felt really good, really locked in. Consistent. Similar.”
