LOS ANGELES -- The last out of the Dodgers' season had been made more than an hour before and Miguel Rojas was still wearing his jersey, cap, eye black and cleats. Moments after a 6-4 loss that cemented a sweep to the Brewers in the National League Championship Series on Thursday night, Rojas stood in front of teammates and coaches and announced his retirement as a player. Keeping his uniform on was his way of preserving that part of him.
Twelve locker stalls down, Tarik Skubal gushed about his 10 weeks in Los Angeles and eschewed questions about his lingering free agency. He was in no hurry to leave either.
There was a suddenness to the way the Dodgers' quest for a three-peat ended, as is often the case in these instances. A sadness, an uneasiness about what's next, but also, closure. The Brewers defeated them so thoroughly that it left the Dodgers with little to second-guess. Rojas called it "refreshing."
"At the end of the day, we got beat," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "We got outplayed in all facets."
Roberts spoke before Rojas and did his best to provide encouragement to a group that won 100 games, claimed its 13th division title in 14 years and ultimately fell eight wins short of another championship. He told them how proud he was. The Dodgers will continue to be good, but the looming lockout has brought with it uncertainty about when they will reconvene and, given the owners' insistence on a salary cap, what type of restrictions they will face.
One thing is certain: The opportunity to go down in history as the only NL team to win three straight World Series will never present itself again. Not for this group.
"For three years straight, we left it all out there," Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said, his eyes welling up. "The train finally ran out of steam, I guess. It just sucks."
At this time last year, the Dodgers dominated the Brewers, outscoring them 15-4 in a sweep. This time, they were the ones outclassed. The Brewers' offense worked counts, continually chipped away at deficits and never relented. Their relievers suffocated hitters late in games. Their entire team answered any time the Dodgers possessed even the slightest hint of momentum.
The most glaring example occurred in the finale. Shohei Ohtani, struggling so badly over the past eight weeks that he practically had to talk his way back into the lineup, crushed a 428-foot home run in the second inning, his first since Aug. 18, giving the Dodgers a 4-0 lead. Then the Brewers cut into it the way only they can -- with a couple of doubles, a couple of steals, a trio of hits and a quintet of walks.
Garrett Mitchell worked the count full against Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott, got a fastball down the middle and deposited it over the fence to give the Brewers a lead their bullpen would not dare relinquish.
All series long, the Brewers felt inevitable.
"That team never let up," Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said through an interpreter. "They never stopped applying pressure. And it's hard. It's really hard for a group to come out on top when the other team is applying pressure like that."
The Dodgers' offense was one of the sport's worst performing units in July and August. Encouragement arrived in September -- Kyle Tucker found his swing, Mookie Betts got in rhythm, Hernandez's legs got fresher -- but not enough of it. The lineup represented the team's biggest concern when October began, regardless of the stars who dotted it. Ohtani was a mess, Freeman was out of whack, and no position-player group was older.
The Dodgers got past the Atlanta Braves in the NL Division Series despite being overly reliant on the home run and never stood a chance against a much better Brewers staff. The Dodgers produced a .520 OPS in the NLCS, 272 points lower than that of the Brewers, and went 4-for-27 with runners in scoring position. The end, then, was fitting. The Dodgers got a one-out double in the sixth, a leadoff double in the seventh and a one-out triple in the eighth -- and didn't score a single run in those innings.
"It wasn't really one pitch or one at-bat," Freeman said. "They just outplayed us this series. That's just kind of how it goes. We had our opportunities. We just didn't get it done."
Ohtani, who batted .192/.323/.308 in the playoffs, said the Brewers "exposed some of the parts of me as a player." He remains bothered by injuries to his left knee, right biceps and perhaps other parts of his body, but he said he will "definitely" attempt to pitch again next season.
When that season begins is uncertain.
"I don't really want to take it for granted for the opportunity to be able to play with these guys," Ohtani said through an interpreter. "But honestly, I think I'm just very disappointed."
The Dodgers' pitching staff was hanging on by a thread when they solidified their championship in Yankee Stadium on Oct. 30, 2024. A year later, they persevered continuously to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays in seven thrilling World Series games, becoming the first team in a quarter-century to repeat. They opened seasons in South Korea and Japan and played later into them than anyone else. They were cast as villains all over the country and beloved in Los Angeles.
And through it all, they concerned themselves only with finishing the job, with winning the final game of the season.
Now, the season will go on without them.
"We never thought about being in this position and not being able to do it," said Rojas, who is expected to transition into a front-office role. "It's tough. It's really hard. But I think what we created here, as an organization, is something bigger than just winning or losing the last game of the year. It's a culture. It's a winning mentality. A team that the people in Los Angeles can be proud of."