The Dodgers continued their strong postseason last night, taking Game 3 against the Brewers for a commanding 3-0 series lead. The offense hasn’t exactly been firing on all cylinders in this series, but they’ve only allowed one run in each of the last four games and now find themselves a win away from a second consecutive NL pennant. The offense wore down Jacob Misiorowski last night, as he dominated for 4 1/3 innings before running into trouble in the sixth inning. Will Smith singled and Freddie Freeman drew a walk, which set up Tommy Edman for a go-ahead RBI single to chase Misiorowski. Abner Uribe got a strikeout, but followed that up with an errant pickoff throw that allowed Freeman to score for a 3-1 Dodger lead. The much maligned bullpen came up big with 3 1/3 shutout innings with no walks and only one hit allowed. Roki Sasaki closed the door in the ninth, and now the Dodgers have the chance for a sweep and a date with either the Mariners or Blue Jays beginning a week from today.
5:38 PM
Los Angeles
2B
Turang (L)
DH
Ohtani (L)
LF
Chourio
SS
Betts
DH
Yelich (L)
C
Smith
C
Contreras
1B
Freeman (L)
1B
Bauers (L)
2B
Edman (S)
CF
Frelick (L)
RF
T. Hernández
3B
Durbin
3B
Muncy (L)
CF
Perkins (S)
LF
K. Hernández
SS
Ortiz
CF
Pages
P
Quintana (L)
P
Ohtani (R)
Shohei Ohtani gets his second playoff start after getting the ball in Game 1 in Philly. Ohtani put up a 1-2-3 first inning against the top of the Philly lineup, but struggled hard in the second. He started the inning with a walk and a single before a two-run J.T. Realmuto triple game the Phillies the lead. Realmuto scored on a sac fly for a third run off Ohtani, but he only allowed two more baserunners through six innings to keep the Dodgers in the game enough for some late-game Teoscar Hernandez heroics. Ohtani needed 89 pitches to get through six and struck out nine with only one walk (and a hit-by-pitch) allowed. It was a solid playoff debut for Ohtani on the mound, which is nice considering his struggles at the plate. He’s only 3-for-29 with five walks (three of which were intentional) in the NLDS and NLCS, but two of those hits have come the last two games. This will be Ohtani’s first time pitching against the Brewers and he’s only faced three current Brewers in the past. Andrew Vaughn and Danny Jansen are a combined 0-for-5 against Ohtani, but Jake Bauers has a walk and a homer in five plate appearances. Ohtani could reportedly be good for 100 pitches/seven innings tonight.
Jose Quintana gets the start looking to stave off elimination. I wrote about Quintana before Game 1 since when I wrote that, it was up in the air whether he or Quinn Priester would be the bulk guy in that game. It ended up being Priester, so I’ll just copy+paste the Quintana stuff now that it’s more certain he’ll throw today.
Quintana would be a Hall Of Famer if he only ever pitched against the Dodgers. He’s faced them 15 times in his career (12 starts) and allowed a .636 OPS and a 2.32 ERA in 73 2/3 innings, his second lowest ERA against any team (only higher than his nine career starts against the Nats). The Dodgers have scored 19 earned runs against Quintana, and four of them came in his last start against them in June, the most they’ve ever scored off him (other than when they scored five unearned runs after errors by Gordon Beckham and Conor Gillaspie). Ohtani and Esteury Ruiz both took Quintana deep in this game, but Lou Trivino gave up the lead in a game the Brewers eventually won 6-5.
Quintana’s definitely owns the Dodgers in the regular season, but not so much in three postseason starts against them. He faced them twice in the 2017 NLCS as a Cub and allowed eight runs in seven innings, including the series-ending game that featured three Enrique Hernandez homers in an 11-1 Dodger win. The Dodgers also lit Quintana up in the NLDS last season as a Met. He allowed five runs over 3 1/3 and allowed five hits and four walks. Ohtani also led that game off with a homer.
Quintana’s transitioned into a sinkerballer late in his career and threw it a career-high 44 percent of the time this season. Despite the increased sinker usage, his 43.3 percent ground ball rate this season was below his career-average of 44.5 percent and 11 of the 18 homers he allowed this season came off it. He’s also thrown a changeup (22.1 percent), curve (14.5 percent), four-seamer (11.7 percent) and slurve (7.7 percent).
The Dodgers roll out the same exact lineup as yesterday with Smith hitting third and Teo hitting sixth. Jackson Chourio is in the Brewer lineup after leaving yesterday’s game with some of the most painful looking cramps I’ve seen. He slides over to left field, with Bauers playing first and Vaughn out of the lineup.
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Sasaki could be available tonight.
Roki Sasaki is available tonight, Dave Roberts said. Would be his first time going back to back.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) October 17, 2025
It would be his first time going back-to-back as a reliever. He threw 13 pitches last night to close out the game. I’m not a betting man, but I would put my savings on Roberts going to Clayton Kershaw to close out the game for the #narrative.
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First pitch is scheduled for 5:38 PM PT and will be on TBS and HBO Max.
