Dodgers-Brewers series just determined important NL playoff implications

The Los Angeles Dodgers entered the weekend with a chance to flip the recent narrative on its head. Beat the Milwaukee Brewers, reclaim the league's best record, and remind everyone else that they don't really have a chance to stop this three-peat freight train. That was the primary agenda.

Unfortunately, as has been the case for nearly all of August, things didn't go according to plan. The Dodgers lost three of four to the Brewers, putting them at 5-10 for the month. Their lead in the NL West has shrunk to seven games, and they now sit three games behind the Brewers for the No. 1 seed in the National League.

The worst part? The Dodgers entered the Sunday series finale with a chance to wipe the slate clean, sending Tarik Skubal to the mound with the season series on the line. And yet, Logan Henderson out-dueled him, setting the stage for an untimely bullpen collapse that gave away the game.

After winning two of three in Milwaukee back in May, the Dodgers have now lost the head-to-head tiebreaker to the Brewers.

Dodgers' poorly timed loss will make rest of regular season more difficult

Whatever is causing this summer swoon hasn't left many untouched; there's a lot of blame to go around, including some of the biggest names on the roster.

Kyle Tucker just went hitless (0-for-22) during the recent homestand, and his month-long wRC+ is down to 86. Tommy Edman has a .461 OPS in 56 plate appearances. Edwin Diaz can't find the strike zone and has a 13.50 ERA. All-Star. Even the great Freddie Freeman has been worth -0.3 fWAR in August.

There's obviously still a lot of season left. The Dodgers close out the month against the Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Atlanta Braves, and Detroit Tigers, with the series in Atlanta serving as an excellent chance to make some gains in the standings considering LA is already down 2-1 in the season series.

All it takes is one mini-winning streak or one curse-busting homer to reset the narrative on a struggling team or player. It's also telling that, despite this recent stretch of bad play, the Dodgers still own their division by a wide margin. They were the best team in baseball for most of this year — a couple of weeks doesn't change that one way or the other.

But the games they lost count the same. And by losing the head-to-head matchup with the Brewers, the Dodgers are going to have to work a tiny bit harder over the next six weeks to secure the positioning they want ahead of October.

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