You can’t keep a good team down.

It was just a matter of time before Shohei Ohtani broke out of his slump. It happened in the second inning of Game 4 of the Championship Game, with two runners on.

The four-time MVP had been mired in a horrible slump, driving in just one run in all of September. That continued on during the playoffs. But his three-run homer looked like it was finally going to get the Dodgers offense started, making the score 4-0 in favor of Los Angeles.

But it was early. Just the second inning. And when Milwaukee scored two in their half of the fourth, it looked like they weren’t going to give up so easily. Jake Bauers, who was in the middle of it all this series, doubled in those two runs. Then, in the fifth, with bases loaded and the score 4-3, Bauers drew a four-pitch walk to drive in the tying run. 

Suddenly, you realized, this Brewers team was not going to lose. Garrett Mitchell’s sixth inning home run made it 5-4. And even though it was just a one-run lead, the Dodgers, with an all-star at every position, looked defeated. They’d put up four runs early and it wasn’t enough. They couldn’t get anything more. 

For good measure, David Hamilton homered in the top of the ninth for Milwaukee to make it 6-4. 

When KiKe Hernandez, the hero of so many past Dodgers playoff games, lined a ball to deep left field that landed in Jackson Chourio’s glove, the Brewers had defeated the mighty, invincible Dodgers. Milwaukee, with its miniscule $146-million payroll slayed Los Angeles, defending two-time World Series champs, with their massive payroll of $347 million.

As the commissioner of baseball says every day in order to prepare baseball for its upcoming lockout, the small market teams simply cannot compete with the large market teams. 

Someone just forgot to tell that to Milwaukee.

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