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LOS ANGELES — The only unresolved issue within their control now is how many days off the Dodgers will have before the start of the World Series next Friday.
Simply, the Dodgers are the better team in this National League Championship Series, resembling a club on a path of destruction toward a second straight World Series title.
The number to consider is three.
That is how many combined runs the Dodgers have surrendered in this series, as the NL West champions moved to the brink of the pennant with a 3-1 victory in Game 3 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers, up 3-0 in the series, will attempt to deliver the final dagger on Friday and become the NL’s first repeat pennant winner since, wait for it, the 2017-18 Dodgers.
Returning home, the Dodgers received a third straight strong starting pitching performance, albeit not in the realm of the previous two.
Tyler Glasnow went 5 ²/₃ innings and allowed one earned run on three hits with three walks and eight strikeouts.
It followed a complete game by Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 in which he allowed one earned run.
A night earlier, Blake Snell faced the minimum 24 batters over eight scoreless innings, allowing only one hit.
A Dodgers bullpen that has struggled rose to the occasion with 3 ¹/₃ scoreless innings. Roki Sasaki earned the save with a perfect ninth.
Mookie Betts delivered an RBI double in the first inning for the game’s initial run after Shohei Ohtani’s leadoff triple.
It was a welcome contribution from Ohtani, who began the day batting only .147 this postseason.
With two runners on base in the inning and one out, rookie ace Jacob Misiorowski was summoned to replace opener Aaron Ashby and struck out Tommy Edman and Teoscar Hernández to escape the threat.
Jake Bauers stroked an RBI single in the second to tie it at 1-1. Caleb Durbin’s triple leading off the inning against Glasnow positioned the Brewers for the run.
Glasnow, with the afternoon shadows as a factor, struck out five straight batters beginning in the fourth inning.
Misiorowski created his own misery by striking out four of five batters over the same stretch.
Durbin walked and stole second in the fourth to end Glasnow’s strikeout streak before Bauers whiffed to give the right-hander three strikeouts in consecutive innings.
Misiorowski finally dented in the sixth, when Edman delivered an RBI single to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead.
The Dodgers extended that lead on Abner Uribe’s errant pickoff attempt at first base that allowed Freddie Freeman to score from third.
Will Smith’s single and Freeman’s walk started the two-run rally.
The Brewers received a blow in the seventh, when Jackson Chourio departed the game during an at-bat after reaching for his hamstring on a swing and miss.
