by Megan Garcia
There were two challenges that were posed against the Dodgers on Thursday: the shadows looming over the field at Dodger Stadium and Brewers rookie phenom Jacob Misiorowski.
The shadows disappeared eventually. Misiorowski wasn’t cooperating.
The Dodger offense couldn’t solve the right-hander in their second meeting against him this season. The strikeouts were accumulating, and the hits weren’t happening.
Until the sixth inning, when a Tommy Edman line drive brought in the Dodgers’ go-ahead run in their 3–1 win in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
“He’s good. His stuff is electric, had good command of everything today, not the easiest day to see, either,” Edman said. “But you know, we’re just doing our best to battle up there, and we’re just fortunate we scraped that run across.”
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Edman was hitless against Misiorowski in two prior at-bats. The second baseman was the first batter to face Misiorowski out of the bullpen in the first. He struck out swinging on a curveball.
In the fourth, Edman was called out on strikes with a fastball clipping the outside edge of the strike zone. By then, Edman had seen nine pitches from the right-hander — each one informing him more on what he was up against.
The Dodgers and Brewers were knotted up at 1–1 entering the sixth. Mookie Betts drove in Shohei Ohtani, who led off with a triple, in the first inning on a double off opener Aaron Ashby. Jake Bauers singled in the tying run in the second inning against Tyler Glasnow.
Andy Pages was the only batter with a hit (single in the second) against Misiorowski through the fifth inning. The right-hander successfully retired nine consecutive batters before he struck out Betts to open the sixth.
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Then, the Dodger lineup started to pick away.
Will Smith lined a single to left field and Freddie Freeman worked a six-pitch walk. Enter Edman, with two runners on and one out.
“He’s a unique pitcher. He’s got a lot of extension, so it seems like he’s releasing it right on top of you,” Edman said. “So, I think just getting some familiarity with his pitch types and everything, and how you need to attack him.”
Edman connected a first-pitch slider from Misiorowski. The ball landed a few feet in front of center fielder Sal Frelick to give the Dodgers a 2–1 lead.
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“I’m not really looking for (the off-speed there). He throws 102 miles an hour, so you got to be ready for the fastball,” Edman said of his at-bat. “I think the swing that I took, I just was able to kind of stay through it, and get it out to center field, but you can’t look for off-speed against a guy like that.”
The hit knocked Misiorowski out of the game. To that point, he allowed two runs this postseason through 12 innings. He had faced the Dodgers on July 8 and allowed one run over six innings, striking out 12 batters.
The Dodgers tacked on another run after he exited on reliever Abner Uribe’s throwing error.
Edman, who was the 2024 NLCS MVP, is now 4-for-11 in this NLCS with two RBI.
“I think it’s just kind of random that I get hot at the right time,” Edman said. “I think we just have guys who have a slow heartbeat, and that’s what makes us successful in the postseason.
“Nobody gets too excited, nobody gets too down and just doing a good job of staying in the moment. I think that kind of rubs off on each other. We just do a good job staying level-headed, even in the big situations, and it results in a lot of wins in the postseason.”
2025 NLCS: Tommy Edman makes a familiar NLCS impact was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.