LOS ANGELES -- Jackson Chourio heaved himself to his feet, pounded his left thigh and clutched his right hamstring. He tried to take a step and nearly crumbled. He spun and hopped toward the dugout on his left leg, unable to place any weight on his right. The clock read 5:18 p.m. at Dodger Stadium. It might as well have been midnight for the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers.

In a 3-1 defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, the Brewers displayed the flaws that have pushed them to the brink of postseason elimination. Facing another high-priced Dodgers starter, the lineup looked lifeless once more. The team's potent concoction of lengthy at-bats and hellacious pressure has been bottled now for 27 innings, as if the Dodgers' rotation stuffed a cork into the entire premise of the Brewers.

To add injury to the ineffectiveness, Milwaukee must now deal with the uncertain status of Chourio, the 21-year-old outfielder, who left Thursday's game with cramping in his hamstring. Then again, even if Chourio can play in Game 4 on Friday, it may not matter. He has been the leadoff hitter of a lineup experiencing a full-blown outage, a group unable to dent Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow on Thursday.

"It's challenging -- I mean, these guys are the best in the world, right?" Brewers outfielder Jake Bauers said. "But that's what you get when you get to this point in the season: the best arms that anybody has to offer. I can only say it so many times, we as an offense have to be better, as a whole. We've got to have better at-bats, we've got to get more hits, we've got to move guys on the bases, and we've got to score runs."

In all of those categories, the Brewers have faltered.

Runs? Three in three games.

Hits? Nine, coming from a lineup that led the National League in batting average.

Moving traffic on the bases? The Brewers went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position on Thursday, which counted as an improvement for a group that went hitless in two opportunities in those situations in the first two games.

"We have to be better," third baseman Caleb Durbin said. "We haven't been good enough this series."

These Brewers hoped to be different than their predecessors, the clubs capable of capturing the NL Central but incapable of advancing beyond an opening postseason round. These Brewers were tired of being patted on the head and condescended to as small-market mavens. These Brewers won 97 games, more than any other team in baseball this season, and outlasted the Cubs in the NL Division Series. These Brewers forced the road to the World Series to run through Milwaukee.

But now the Dodgers are barreling down that road. After the first two games at American Family Field, the Brewers could chalk up the empty at-bats to the excellence of the opponents. Blake Snell made the ball dance and the Brewers quiver in Game 1. Yoshinobu Yamamoto spun a three-hitter in Game 2. Those were, to manager Pat Murphy, "epic, historical pitching performances."

The Brewers did not confront something out of "Beowulf" on Thursday, but they still made Glasnow look like Grendel. Glasnow struck out eight during 5 2/3 innings. The outing nullified five strong innings from rookie Jacob Misiorowski, who yielded two runs after inheriting an early deficit wrought by another shaky performance from opener Aaron Ashby.

Any quibble with the deployment of Milwaukee's pitchers obscures the primary reason for the 3-0 hole. The heart of the team's lineup is beating only faintly. Chourio supplied a leadoff homer in Game 1 but is hitless in his nine other at-bats. Second baseman Brice Turang has gone 0-for-12 and catcher William Contreras has gone 0-for-10. Christian Yelich produced his first hit of the series in Thursday's first inning when he clipped an infield single. He struck out in his next three at-bats. The quartet has struck out 16 times against the Dodgers.

"We haven't got the clutch hit," Murphy said. "We've been a little foreign to how we've played, in terms of contact."

The seventh inning offered a window into the dearth of options for Murphy. Trailing by two runs, Durbin led off with a double off Dodgers lefty Alex Vesia. In the on-deck circle was Bauers, a left-handed hitter who struggled against southpaws during the regular season. But Bauers has taken some of the team's best at-bats this series. He knocked in his team's only run on Thursday when he singled after Durbin's second-inning triple. So Murphy stuck with Bauers, who flied out.

There was still only one out and a full bench for Murphy. He inserted switch-hitting outfielder Isaac Collins in place of shortstop Joey Ortiz. Aware that Collins was a better hitter from the right side, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts countered with veteran right-hander Blake Treinen. Collins hit a harmless fly for the second out.

The lineup turned over for Chourio. He fell behind in the count. When Treinen hung an 0-2 sweeper, Chourio took a mighty hack and limped out of the box, unable to quell the cramping.

"I maybe tried to pull the trigger a little too hard there," Chourio said. "That's maybe what caused it."

Maybe the Brewers are trying to do too much. Or maybe against a pitching staff like the Dodgers, a group peaking with exquisite timing, they just can't do enough. The Dodgers' staff offers little respite. To avoid a sweep on Friday, the Brewers will have to get through Shohei Ohtani in full two-way form.

Upon arrival in Los Angeles, Brewers players found notes at their lockers left by Murphy. The manager figured a written missive made more sense than a motivational speech. To provide perspective, he referenced the team's wretched start to this season. "If I was to tell this group after 0-4 start with the worst run differential in baseball history . . . 'Hey, you're four games from the World Series,' you'd take it," Murphy said.

It was true that the Brewers arrived at Dodger Stadium needing only four victories to win the pennant. But now they are one defeat away from winter.

"We're in a big hole," Yelich said. "We've got to break it down into little goals. Our goal right now should be to get the series back to Milwaukee. We'll worry about the rest of it later. We can't look at it as 'We've got to four in a row.' Obviously, we do. But you can't win four before you win one, or before you win two."

These Brewers have defied expectations all season. Yet the team is not competing with expectations or projection systems or the opinions of prognosticators. They are competing with the Dodgers. A dream season is nine innings away from being dashed.

The road to the World Series must go through Milwaukee. But the actual World Series might not come to town this year.

With Jackson Chourio injured and down 3-0 in NLCS, Brewers' dreams are almost dashed