Dodgers draw Milwaukee Brewers in best-of-three wild card round

The Dodgers were delayed in the middle of a game this season when a drone was spotted flying over the field. Saturday, another game was interrupted by a power outage. Sunday, you could hear the unmistakable sound of a beeping truck driving in reverse from 2,000 miles away. It was the sound of the Milwaukee Brewers backing into the playoffs.

The Brewers needed to beat the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday to finish the regular season with a .500 record. They lost 5-2 to wrap up a 29-31 season, good for fourth place in the National League Central. In any other year, the Brewers’ season would have ended there.

When the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants lost their respective games Sunday, the Brewers secured the eighth and final playoff position in the National League. The Giants also finished 29-31, but the Brewers held the tiebreaker by virtue of their superior record in intradivisional games.

Milwaukee went 19-21 against the rest of the NL Central, while San Francisco went 18-22 against the NL West.

So it was that the Dodgers will host the Brewers in a best-of-three National League wild card series beginning Wednesday at Dodger Stadium. Game 1 will start at 7 p.m. and air nationally on ESPN. Start times and channels for Games 2 and 3 are yet to be determined.

The Brewers never spent a day above .500 this season, but they never fell more than four games below .500. That allowed them to remain competitive in a tightly contested NL Central, which sent four teams to the postseason.

They did so despite an offense that batted just .223 and finished with a .702 on-base plus slugging percentage – 13th out of 15 National League teams. Their two former MVPs, Christian Yelich and Ryan Braun, batted .202 and .238 respectively. By the end of the season, their best hitters were former Dodger infielder Jedd Gyorko (.248 average, nine home runs) and designated hitter Dan Vogelbach, who was designated for assignment by the Mariners in August.

What Milwaukee lacked in offense, it made up for with pitching. Corbin Burnes (4-1, 2.11 ERA) was a contender for the Cy Young Award until he suffered an oblique injury Thursday. His status for the series is unclear. Brandon Woodruff (3-5, 3.05 ERA) is the strongest candidate to start Game 1 instead.

Manager Craig Counsell has deployed the same strategy of “openers” that allowed the Brewers to reach the 2017 NL Championship Series, which the Dodgers won in seven games. Rookie right-hander Devin Williams is the top reliever to watch. He has allowed one run in 27 innings (0.33 ERA) and struck out 53 of the 100 batters he’s faced. Josh Hader (13 saves in 15 opportunities) is the closer.

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