The Brewers Are World Series Favorites Now — and the Dodgers' Aces Are Why the Board Flipped

By The Sports Desk, Previously

October 13, 2026

For the first time all season, the Dodgers are not the World Series favorites. Milwaukee is +105 at DraftKings, Los Angeles has slid to +340, and Cleveland and Tampa Bay round out a four-team board.

All season, the odds board had one name at the top. As of Tuesday morning, October 13, it has a different one. DraftKings Sportsbook, as listed by FOX Sports, makes the Milwaukee Brewers the World Series favorites at +105 — near even money — after Milwaukee beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-4 on Monday night to take a 2-0 lead in the National League Championship Series. The Dodgers, who had not spent a moment of the season off the top of the board, are down to +340. The Cleveland Guardians are +400 after their Game 1 win in Tampa Bay, and the Rays are the longest shot left at +500.

How Milwaukee Took the Top Spot in 48 Hours

The move happened in two steps, and FOX Sports' odds page documented both. After Milwaukee's 2-1 win in Game 1 on Sunday, the Brewers edged in front at +175 to the Dodgers' +180 — the first time all year Los Angeles had not been the outright favorite. Game 2 turned an edge into a gap: +105 against +340. The reasons are sitting in the box score of the series so far, and we covered the game itself in our full NLCS Game 2 recap.

The most uncomfortable line for Los Angeles is about its aces. FOX noted that the Dodgers rolled out Tarik Skubal in Game 1 and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2, and the two combined to last just seven innings, taking both losses. Yamamoto's Game 2 start ended after 2 2/3 innings. A team built on star pitching has gotten seven innings from its two best starters in the two most important games of its season — and now has to win four of the next five against the team with home field throughout the postseason, starting with Game 3 in Los Angeles on Wednesday, previewed in our NLCS Game 3 preview.

Reading the Exact-Matchup Board

DraftKings also prices each possible World Series matchup, and the exact-result board is where the numbers get interesting. The two shortest outcomes both end with Tampa Bay losing the Fall Classic: Brewers beat Rays and Dodgers beat Rays, each at +400. Brewers beat Guardians is +475 and Dodgers beat Guardians is +500. Flip them around and the board stretches out: Rays beat Brewers at +550, Rays beat Dodgers at +1,000, Guardians beat Brewers at +1,100 and — the longest number available — Guardians beat Dodgers at +1,700.

Scores and Stats, breaking down the same DraftKings market ESPN listed on October 13, added the implied math: +105 corresponds to roughly a 48.8 percent chance, +340 to 22.7 percent, +400 to 20 percent and +500 to 16.7 percent — a total of 108.2 percent, with the 8.2 points over 100 representing the bookmaker's margin. In plain terms, the book is saying Milwaukee wins this thing about half the time, and is charging you for the privilege of agreeing.

The Pennant Prices, and the Three-Peat Context

The pennant markets tell the same story one round earlier. Milwaukee is -285 to finish off the National League, with Los Angeles at +235 — prices that say the Dodgers need to win the series equivalent of a small miracle: four of five, with their rotation already spent. In the American League, Cleveland's 7-3 Game 1 win at Tropicana Field — detailed in our ALCS Game 1 account — flipped the Guardians to -165 favorites for the pennant, with Tampa Bay at +135. Game 2 of that series is Tuesday night, with Parker Messick starting for Cleveland against Freddy Peralta, and it is the next big lever on this whole board: a Rays win evens the series and shortens Tampa Bay everywhere; a Guardians win puts Cleveland one step from the same favorite's chair Milwaukee is sitting in.

Context matters for the Dodgers' slide, too. Los Angeles is chasing a third consecutive World Series title, something no franchise has done since the Yankees won three straight from 1998 to 2000. That history is why the Dodgers opened October as favorites and why their price stayed short through every wobble — until a 2-0 hole against the team with the best home record in the sport finally moved it.

The Schedule Ahead

The calendar gives everyone one day to breathe. The World Series is scheduled to open Friday, October 23, with a Game 7, if needed, on Saturday, October 31 — Halloween — per ESPN's listing. Between now and then: NLCS Game 3 in Los Angeles on Wednesday, ALCS Game 2 in St. Petersburg on Tuesday night, and an odds board that will keep repricing every pitch of both.

A final caution that every October deserves: the favorite on October 13 is a snapshot, not a prophecy. Milwaukee at +105 still loses this championship more often than it wins it in the book's own math — 48.8 percent is a coin flip wearing a crown. What has actually changed is the burden of proof. For six months the Dodgers were the default answer to every World Series question. After two nights in Milwaukee, the default answer is the Brewers, and Los Angeles has five games to argue otherwise. The rest of Monday's finals are in the NBA preseason wrap and the full Previously sports front.