LOS ANGELES -- Enduring regret often lingers from postseason defeat, those nagging thoughts of what could have been, what should have been, what might have been. The 2025 Toronto Blue Jays are haunted by such memories from last fall's World Series.
But there is none of that for the 2026 Los Angeles Dodgers, following the last night of baseball in their quest for a third straight World Series title. The Milwaukee Brewers wrecked them in a one-sided series that presents carte blanche for whatever changes the L.A. front office deems necessary, from upgrading the team's speed and defense to a reassessment of the deference granted to the ambitions of the sport's most popular star, Shohei Ohtani.
The question that hovered over this entire major league season was whether anyone could beat the Dodgers. Now, after dominating the National League Championship Series, the Brewers appear to be the new standard.
"We got outplayed in all facets," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "Those guys played flawless. Defensively they pitched better than we did, they hit better than we did, they slugged more than we did. You've got to sometimes just tip your cap."
The Milwaukee Brewers outscored the Dodgers 21-9 and outhomered them 7-1. Whenever L.A. scored, the Brewers counterpunched immediately.
There was some evident Dodgers angst occasionally strewn during the game. Like when Ohtani clubbed his home run in the second inning, his first in almost two months. He shed his typically polite decorum and showed another side of Shohei, shouting and pumping his arms at teammates in the home dugout and waving emphatically to the fans in left field, with his left hand and then his right, and unleashing a primal scream when he got back in the dugout. "I think it was a lot of pent-up anger, frustration," Roberts said. "It was the best ball he hit in probably two, three months, and it was a big hit."
Max Muncy struck out to end the sixth and disgustedly dumped no fewer than seven pieces of equipment: his bat, followed by his helmet, followed by various pieces of protective gear. But after the last out, after the Brewers' bullpen stifled them again, there didn't seem to be a lot of tears in the Dodger clubhouse. Miguel Rojas -- a big brother to this group, Mookie Betts said -- announced to the group that he is retiring, as expected. Freddie Freeman spoke. Betts offered some words, and so did Roberts. Just lots of perspective.
After reporters entered the room, Ohtani said through his interpreter, "The Brewers were overall strong and a very good team, and it really exposed some of the parts of me as a player, and got to give some credit to that."
The failed attempt at back-to-back-to-back championships, Mookie Betts said, "was hard, man. It's hard. You know, you go back to where we started in Korea a couple years ago. It's been like nonstop since. It's been a grind, but I mean it's part of the game. Part of life."
Kiké Hernandez was asked if these Dodgers were like dinosaurs hit by a meteor -- the implication that they were made extinct.
"Obviously we had a lot of expectations," he said. "We fell short. We had a good run, but here we are. I don't know what's going to happen with me personally, moving forward for next year. But this team is well positioned to keep winning and keep competing deep into October. So not only is this locker room very talented, but there's a lot of guys knocking on the door in the minor league system that can be really impactful players. So the organization is in good hands. We just, we fell short."
Such perspective comes with experience -- and the Dodgers have lots of experience. Freddie Freeman is 37, Muncy is 36, Betts is 34. Ohtani is 32. Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Edwin Diaz, Teoscar Hernandez, Will Smith, Tommy Edman are all in their 30s. Many are on the downslope of accomplished careers.
Before the game, Freeman smiled when asked about the age of the Dodgers' roster. "We do know we have an older team," he said. "That doesn't mean we're old and we're playing bad because we're old. We're just not playing that great, in my mind."
"I don't feel old. So hopefully when you watch us play tonight, you can say we don't look old and we win the game."
But the Dodgers didn't win, and they did look older and slower than Milwaukee. While the Brewers outfielders seemingly covered acres of outfield, making play after play, the Dodgers slogged. Milwaukee shortstop Cooper Pratt is 22 years old and doesn't have much experience or perspective, and in the ninth inning, he backhanded a ball and whipped a missile to first base for an out. Back in 2020, when they won their first title of this era, the Dodgers were widely lauded as a dynamic, athletic team. Now, even Dodgers fans seemed worn down: There were rows of empty upper-deck seats in the left- and right-field corners; the Game 4 attendance of 49,104 was less than the team's regular-season average.
There is clearly a need for the Dodgers to regain that dynamism of 2020, and it won't happen without change. Andrew Friedman, the head of baseball operations, must decide with his staff whether it can succeed with Hernandez locked into one spot in the outfield, and how much more Muncy can give. Freeman is eligible for free agency after next season. It must decide whether to invest the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be required to retain Skubal, who thrived in his time with the Dodgers but is now a free agent, with his 30th birthday next month.
Complicating all of these choices is baseball's looming labor war. Nobody knows for sure what the economic system will be and whether there will be more restrictions aimed at curbing the Dodgers' financial advantages over other teams.
So much of the Dodgers' plans revolve around Ohtani, generally viewed as the best player of this generation -- maybe all generations -- and he will go into the offseason under thick clouds of doubt. Is his persistent left knee trouble this year something that Ohtani, as a right-handed pitcher, can overcome? Can he be a full-time pitcher again? Is it better for Ohtani and the Dodgers that he commits himself solely to hitting? Could he play in the field or is he a DH only, and how might that impact Freeman, a first baseman, or Josue De Paula, the team's best hitting prospect?
Since Ohtani was a teenager, he has been driven to be a two-way player, to be the best hitter and the best pitcher, and the Dodgers have largely deferred to him in this, with success. But this year, his efforts to pitch led to injuries to his knee and biceps, which in turn affected his offense. He struggled terribly at the plate in the last games of the regular season and the playoffs before his home run in Game 4. If his name wasn't Ohtani, if he didn't have the bank of MVPs and acclaim, he might've been a candidate to be left off the Dodgers' postseason roster.
He tried to make it work. It didn't.
After Game 4, Ohtani was asked about what's next for him as a two-way player, and whether that's something he'll continue, and he responded through an interpreter that he was "not quite satisfied with how things shaped up on the pitching side at the end of the year. This year, I haven't pitched, and I haven't pitched in the postseason. You know, I haven't been able to really come to grips in terms of what I've learned overall this season. It's something that I'm going to kind of go back to the drawing board in terms of treatment, training program, and see what I can come up with for next season."
The Dodgers have a lot of really good players, a strong farm system, more resources than anyone. But they reached a fork in their journey Thursday night, with uncertainty ahead.