No, money isn't to blame for the Brewers' faceplant against the Dodgers

The Milwaukee Brewers entered Game 3 of the NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers hoping to keep their dream season from going up in flames. Instead, they tortured their fans with more of the same: After scratching a run across in the second inning, Milwaukee's bats once again went silent, mustering all of four hits and seven total baserunners in a 3-1 loss. Down 3-0 with two more games upcoming in L.A., this series feels well and truly cooked, even if the offseason has yet to officially begin.

All of which has Brewers fans in a state of mourning, and understandably so. For six months, this was a dream season, one that saw Milwaukee win an MLB-best 97 games while running away with the NL Central. To have that season crash and burn, like this, against baseball's preeminent villains, is a real punch in the gut.

In their grief, Brewers fans — and neutral onlookers, desperate to see the big, bad Dodgers get humbled — are desperate for something to blame, a place to put all their feelings of rage and despair. And they've found an all-too-convenient one, the same stalking horse trotted out since time immemorial: money.

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Dodgers haters cry foul after another postseason win

See, it's not the Brewers' fault they find themselves in this situation. The team never actually had a chance of winning this series: The Dodgers were simply too good, too loaded with talent after splashing over a billion dollars in free agency over the last two years, too rich to possibly compete against. More than $200 million in payroll separated Milwaukee and L.A. this year, a gap that in itself would've ranked as one of the 10 most expensive rosters in the league. Framed that way, how could this have played out any differently? Heck, why not just cancel the rest of this postseason and the next few postseasons to come.

Clearly, this series was proof that major change was needed. Baseball is irreparably, inarguably broken, and only one thing can fix it: the institution of a salary cap.

This has become a common refrain as the Dodgers have ran up record payrolls in recent years, and as those payrolls have begun to deliver championships. And that refrain will only grow louder now, after the whole country has watched Los Angeles brush aside the team with baseball's best regular-season record — a team that just so happens to come from a small market and that rarely, if ever, operates at the top of the free-agent market. The narrative more or less writes itself.

Unfortunately, that narrative is bunk. It was bunk last season, when the Dodgers won it all. It was bunk this winter, when L.A. took advantage of half the league sitting on its hands rather than acquiring talent. And it's certainly bunk now — because while money certainly separates these two franchises, it's not what's making the difference on the field.

Brewers' ugly NLCS showing isn't about money

I'm not naive here. The financial disparity is obvious, and I won't insult your intelligence by pretending like that disparity doesn't impact what happens on the field. The Brewers aren't capable of spending the way that the Dodgers are, even if they wanted to. And that money is a big part of the reason why Los Angeles currently employs each of the three pitchers who have started games so far in this series.

But that doesn't mean that the Brewers can use it as an excuse. Even on a relative shoe-string budget, Milwaukee built one of the best teams in baseball this season, one that featured a top-10 lineup that got on base as well as anyone and wreaked havoc once it did. And yet, once the lights got bright, the approach that brought them so much success over the last few months has completely disappeared — not because of anything they could or couldn't afford, but simply because their players have failed to show up.

The best lineup that money could buy has scored all of 10 runs across the first three games of this series; clearly Milwaukee's pitchers didn't much care how much Shohei Ohtani and Co. were earning. Yet it hasn't mattered, because the Brewers offense has been less than punchless. Instead of working counts the way they usually do, this lineup is swinging at anything and everything, putting together non-competitive at-bats that have played into the Dodgers' hands.

And that's not a money thing. Christian Yelich is making $24 million this year, and he's 1-for-11 with six strikeouts and an infield single. Jackson Chourio set a record for the richest contract ever signed by a player before his MLB debut, and he registered just one hit (admittedly a homer) in 11 at-bats before leaving Thursday's game with hamstring cramps. Chourio, Yelich, William Contreras, Brice Turang and Andrew Vaughn — the heart of the Brewers order, the engine that got them to this point — has gone a combined 3-for-54 with 19 strikeouts.

You're going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that those numbers are about money, rather than players playing poorly? At one point on Thursday the Brewers faced Dodgers reliever Anthony Banda, making $1 million in salary this season, and still couldn't get anything going. Milwaukee's offensive effort, hasn't just been bad; it's been historically awful.

I refuse to accept that this is a product of an overmatched team, when that same team just won 97 games and swept L.A. at Dodger Stadium back in July. If it were, then Milwaukee wouldn't have had ample opportunities to win both Games 1 and 3. But they did, and they simply declined to take advantage of any of them, unless you want to say that Turang was blinded by a lack of parity when he swung at a pitch at his eyes to strike out with the bases loaded in a one-run game in the bottom of the ninth.

It's not satisfying to say that the Brewers just choked, or flopped, or whatever word you want to use. But it's the truth, and while money certainly plays a part in how good the Dodgers are, it's hardly rendered them some unstoppable juggernaut. They're a baseball team, and you can beat them by playing good baseball. Milwaukee failed to do that at the most important time, and now they're about to head home.