Posting 103 victories across the regular season placed Milwaukee atop the majors in the win column, yet their power numbers told a different story — the Brewers ranked among the bottom two clubs leaguewide in home runs. Consecutive home runs from Jake Bauers and Garrett Mitchell against Blake Snell in the seventh inning carried Milwaukee to a 6-2 victory over Los Angeles on Wednesday, putting the Brewers three games ahead with none lost in the National League Championship Series.

On the very first delivery of the at-bat, Chourio connected for a home run, pulling Milwaukee to within one win of reaching an NL pennant series — a berth the franchise had never before secured. The franchise's lone World Series appearance came during its American League tenure — a seven-game defeat at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals in 1982 — and Mitchell noted that the work ahead remained unfinished.

With Thursday's game at Dodger Stadium, the Brewers stand on the edge of postseason history — no major league club has ever turned around a playoff sweep by eliminating the same opponent that swept them the year before. A sweep of all four NLCS contests against Milwaukee belonged to Los Angeles the previous postseason.

Milwaukee's three-run seventh-inning rally wiped out a 2-1 Los Angeles lead that had formed just the half-inning before. That defeat left the two-time defending World Series holders one loss away from an early exit, while Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy noted afterward that his team had answered every opposing score with one of their own across all three games played — a pattern he described as far from routine in baseball — marking a fifth comeback win across seven postseason outings for the Brewers, a club that has yet to defeat Los Angeles across three prior playoff meetings.

The sole prior instance of Los Angeles trailing three games to zero in a best-of-seven postseason series ended with Baltimore taking all four remaining contests to capture the 1966 World Series. Postseason baseball has witnessed only one instance of a team recovering from a three-games-to-none deficit to keep its season alive — the Boston Red Sox pulling off that reversal against the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series — and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts cited his team's ability to reel off four straight wins on several occasions during that season as a basis for believing another such run remained within reach.

Heading into the seventh inning, Snell had set down 14 consecutive batters without allowing any of them to reach base. Chourio turned the pitcher's opening delivery into a home run, and Mitchell's solo shot came off the final pitch of his outing — bookending a difficult night for the two-time Cy Young Award winner.

Vaughn worked a seven-pitch walk to begin the seventh inning, at which point Yelich entered the game as a pinch-runner in his place. Bauers connected on the 11th pitch of that plate appearance, sending the ball 412 feet into right field to put Milwaukee ahead 3-2, with much of the dugout spilling onto the field in response — and he later noted that he had been sitting on a fastball and did not want to let it go by, adding that a shift in mindset away from dwelling on outcomes had made a difference for him across the season in which he led the team with 26 of its 154 regular-season home runs.

Mitchell noted that focusing on the present and stepping aside from self-doubt had become a priority, and the ball he put in play traveled 428 feet toward right-center field. That solo shot broke a stretch in which Snell had gone 46 1/3 innings without giving up a home run, and the manager pulled him from the game shortly after.

Consecutive home runs surrendered to left-handed batters marked a career first for him, while allowing multiple longballs to that same group of hitters within a single outing had occurred only once before. Hitting from the left side, Bauers and Mitchell joined a short list — only two prior duos had managed back-to-back home runs against a left-handed pitcher in postseason play.

Two home runs struck back-to-back off Atlanta reliever Dylan Lee — one by Kyle Schwarber, the other by Bryce Harper — powered Philadelphia during this year's NL Wild Card Series, a feat that echoes what Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig accomplished against St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bill Sherdel when the New York Yankees faced him in the 1928 World Series. Four long balls off Milwaukee bats during the NLCS brought the club's total postseason home run count to eight.

Four runs crossed the plate against Snell across a stretch of six-plus innings, with four hits allowed along the way. Nine batters went down on strikes, while two others drew free passes.

A wild pitch from Justin Wrobleski in the eighth inning pushed Milwaukee's advantage out to 5-2, with Brice Turang — who had reached base on an infield single before moving up to third on a hit by William Contreras — crossing the plate on the errant delivery. A two-strike single off the bat of Joey Ortiz brought one more run across the plate during the ninth inning.

A two-run double from Will Smith against reliever Abner Uribe in the sixth inning pushed Los Angeles ahead, 2-1, despite the team's struggles to generate offense throughout the game. With five shutout frames already on Gasser's ledger from his debut start, Uribe took the mound and promptly put three runners aboard — Teoscar Hernández, Kyle Tucker, and Shohei Ohtani each drawing walks to fill the bases.

With one out recorded, Smith lofted a drive that caromed off the left-center wall for a double — his opening hit of the NLCS — and in doing so ended a stretch of futility that had yielded only a single base knock across 25 prior postseason trips to the plate. Entering the game in relief of Uribe, Hall retired pinch-hitter Kiké Hernández and Tommy Edman on strikeouts, leaving two baserunners — one at second, one at third — without scoring.

Three wins and no losses now define Hall's postseason ledger, a tally built on an outing where 2 1/3 innings came and went without a run allowed and only a single hit reaching base. Picking up four outs in relief, Megill recorded his fourth postseason save and wrapped up his second of the series.

Chourio's third career leadoff home run in postseason play put Los Angeles in a deficit once more. Following a walk to Mitchell and a Cooper Pratt single in the second inning, Snell put together a stretch of 14 consecutive outs — six of them via strikeout — before the seventh inning brought a run of hard contact against him.

Through six of the nine innings, Dodgers hitters put runners on base, though those opportunities repeatedly went unrealised as the team's run production fell short of what a victory would have required. No home run has crossed the plate for them through the NLCS, and across this entire postseason their bats have gone quiet with runners in scoring position — a combined 3-for-32 in those situations.

Batting sixth — a spot lower in the lineup than at any point in his three seasons with the Dodgers — Ohtani reached base once on a walk and collected one hit across two plate appearances.