Best Games Of 2018 Season: No. 1, Game 7 Win Over Brewers In NLCS

In response to Opening Day of the 2020 Major League Baseball season being indefinitely delayed, MLB.TV made every game from 2018 and 2019 available to stream for free. With that, DodgerBlue.com ranked the best Los Angeles Dodgers games from those two seasons.

The list began with the 2018 campaign and now concludes with the No. 1 game — as ranked by the DodgerBlue staff — when the Dodgers defeated the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series.

The victory marked the Dodgers’ second consecutive berth in the World Series and the franchise’s 11th NL pennant since moving to Los Angeles in 1958. Overall, it was the Dodgers’ 23rd NL crown and their first time winning it two consecutive seasons since 1977 and 1978.

They accomplished the feat by ousting a Brewers club that owned the best record in the NL at 96-67. The Dodgers dropped Game 1 and again faced a series deficit when the NLCS shifted to Dodger Stadium for Game 3.

Cody Bellinger made a terrific diving catch and delivered a walk-off single in Game 4, and Clayton Kershaw helped pitch the Dodgers to another win the following afternoon. L.A. failed to close the Brewers out in Game 6, setting the stage for a winner-take-all scenario at Miller Park.

The Brewers were first to strike — on Christian Yelich’s solo home run in the bottom of the first inning — but Walker Buehler and a slew of Dodgers relief pitchers blanked them from that point forward.

Buehler wasn’t overly sharp but he nonetheless recorded seven strikeouts over 4.2 innings. Julio Urias, Ryan Madson, Kenley Jansen and Kershaw pieced the game together to wrap up the 5-1 win.

What appeared to be an oddity immediately paid off as after Manny Machado reached on a bunt single in the second inning, with two strikes no less, Cody Bellinger tagged Jhoulys Chacín for a go-ahead two-run home run.

In line with some of his other NLCS appearances, Jeremy Jeffress failed to be effective. His first pitch was lined into center field by Justin Turner for a base hit, and two batters later Yasiel Puig broke the game open with a three-run home run in the sixth inning.

Chris Taylor effectively saved the Dodgers’ season by making a terrific sliding catch on the warning track in left-center field to rob Yelich of what would’ve been a game-tying extra-base hit.

Kenley Jansen entered with two outs in the seventh and remained in the game to get through the top of the Brewers’ lineup in the eighth inning. For Kershaw, who tossed a perfect ninth to convert his second career save, the work came on his between-starts bullpen day.

Bellinger was named NLCS MVP.