First things first: The fans in an outdoor stadium in Philadelphia are louder than the fans in an indoor stadium in Milwaukee. No contest.
They are respectful and truly nice here. They booed Shohei Ohtani, but half-heartedly, almost out of obligation. In Philadelphia, they booed Ohtani relentlessly, and with hostility.
Here’s the thing, though: It didn’t matter, because the Dodgers have silenced the enemy crowd wherever they go this October. The Dodgers are undefeated on the road in this postseason: 2-0 in Philadelphia, and now 2-0 in Milwaukee.
The Dodgers have deployed four silencers. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Snell, Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani.
Read more: Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s stellar complete game helps lift Dodgers over Brewers in Game 2
“It’s amazing,” Tyler Glasnow said. “It’s like a show every time you’re out there.”
The Dodgers won the World Series last year with home runs and bullpen games and New York Yankees foibles, but not with starting pitching. In 16 games last October, the Dodgers had more bullpen games (four) than quality starts (two), and the starters posted a 5.25 earned-run average.
In eight games this October, the Dodgers have seven quality starts, and not coincidentally they are 7-1. The starters have posted a 1.54 ERA, the lowest of any team in National League history to play at least eight postseason games.
“Our starting pitching this entire postseason has been incredible,” said Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations. “We knew it would be a strength, but this is beyond what we could have reasonably expected.
“There are a lot of different ways to win in the postseason, but this is certainly a better-quality-of-life way to do it.”
The elders of the sport say that momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. In a sport in which most teams struggle to identify even one ace, the Dodgers boast four.
In the past three games — the clincher against the Phillies and the two here against the Brewers — the Dodgers have not even trailed for a full inning.
In the division series clincher, the Phillies scored one run in the top of an inning, but the Dodgers scored in the bottom of the inning.
On Monday, the Brewers never led. On Tuesday, the Brewers had a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first, but the Dodgers scored twice in the top of the second.
On Monday, as Blake Snell spun eight shutout innings, the Brewers went 0 for 1 with men in scoring position — and that at-bat was the last out of the game. On Tuesday, as Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a complete game, the Brewers did not get a runner into scoring position.
That is momentum. That is also how you shut up an opposing crowd: limit the momentum for their team.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers against the Brewers in the fifth inning Tuesday. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“I do think, with what we’ve done in Philly and in coming here, it doesn’t seem like there is much momentum,” Glasnow said.
Of the four aces, Glasnow and Ohtani were not available to pitch last fall as they rehabilitated injuries, and Snell was pitching for the San Francisco Giants.
In the 2021 NLCS, the Dodgers started Walker Buehler twice and Julio Urías, Max Scherzer and openers Joe Kelly and Corey Knebel once each. Scherzer could not make his second scheduled start because of injury.
Said infielder-outfielder Kiké Hernández: “We’ve had some really good starting pitchers in the past, but at some point we’ve hit a roadblock through the postseason. To be this consistent for seven, eight games now, it’s been pretty impressive. In a way, it’s made things a little easier on the lineup.”
In the wild-card round, the Dodgers scored 18 runs in two games against the Cincinnati Reds. Since then, they have 20 runs in six games.
“We said before this postseason started, our starting pitching was going to be what carried us,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “And so far, it’s been exactly that.”
The starters started their roll in the final weeks of the regular season — their ERA is 1.49 over the past 30 games — not that Hernández much cared about that now.
Read more: Hernández: The Dodgers’ latest starting-pitching flex? Make the bullpen a non-factor
“Regular season doesn’t matter,” he said. “We can win 300 games in the regular season.
“If we don’t win the World Series, it doesn’t matter.”
The Dodgers are two wins from a return trip to the World Series. If they can get those two wins within the next three games, they won’t have to return to Milwaukee, the land of the great sausage race, and of the polka dancers atop the dugout.
There may not be another game here this season. They are kind and spirited fans, even if they are not nearly as loud as the Philly Phanatics.
“That,” Glasnow said, “is the loudest place I’ve ever been.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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