The Milwaukee Brewers pushed the Los Angeles Dodgers to the seventh game of the National League Championship Series in 2018, falling by a 5-1 count at then-Miller Park. When Christian Yelich homered in the bottom of the first to give the Brewers a 1-0 lead, it represented what has to be considered the highest point of the season: The Brewers could actually visualize their first World Series trip since 1982.

But it was downhill from there. And though it wouldn't have been incorrect to imagine that this was just the start for a Brewers franchise that had turned a corner, it also kickstarted a series of deflating postseason exits. Including that game, Milwaukee has lost 9 of its past 10 postseason games.

Strangely enough, every team that has beaten the Brewers in the postseason has played in the World Series, so perhaps it's a matter of meeting the wrong team at the wrong time. And perhaps not.

Consider this an exorcism to re-examine everything that's gone wrong; could 2024 be different?

2018, NLCS Game 7: Cody Bellinger sparks the Dodgers' turnaround

The Dodgers hadn't surrendered an out before jumping back in front of the Brewers after Yelich's homer. Manny Machado surprised Milwaukee's infield when he squared for a bunt single to the left side, and Cody Bellinger socked a home run to give Los Angeles a 2-1 lead one batter later against Milwaukee starter Jhoulys Chacín.

Yasiel Puig followed with a double down the right-field line, and though he was stranded, the Dodgers had taken clear control. Immediately in the third, the Brewers turned to Josh Hader, then a multi-inning dynamo who kept L.A. off the board for three innings, but Milwaukee couldn't answer with the bats. Travis Shaw led off the fourth with a double but was stranded. Perhaps most crushingly, Yelich's long fly ball in the fifth with a runner on second was flagged down by a lunging catch from Chris Taylor.

The game broke open in the sixth. Jeremy Jeffress faced two on with two outs, and Puig hit a screaming home run to center that gave the Dodgers a 5-1 lead and what felt like the ballgame. The Brewers sent only one over the minimum to the plate after that, with Kenley Jansen recording four outs and typical starter Clayton Kershaw locking down the last three.

It was a remarkable run for the 2018 Brewers that ended just short of the World Series in Boston. Getting back to that point has proven challenging.

2019, wild-card game: The eighth inning from hell

Few will forget the three-run eighth inning from Washington that ruined Milwaukee's chances in the 2019 wild-card game at Nationals Park.

Milwaukee took a 3-0 lead on starter Max Scherzer thanks to home runs by Yasmani Grandal and Eric Thames, and though Brandon Woodruff allowed a two-out homer to Trea Turner in the third, the Brewers starter provided four strong innings after making only four starts in the second half while battling a strained oblique. Brent Suter worked one inning and Drew Pomeranz retired six straight batters, giving the ball to Hader in the eighth with the 3-1 lead intact. Perhaps the team would prevail even after losing MVP candidate Yelich to a broken kneecap in September.

With one out, Hader threw a pitch that tailed well inside and seemingly struck Michael A. Taylor. Replay showed the ball hit the bat knob first, but after review, the call was upheld, and that would loom large, even after Turner struck out for the second out.

Aging veteran Ryan Zimmerman shattered his bat but floated a bloop single into center that put runners at the corners, and Anthony Rendon took a walk on a 3-2 pitch to load the bases. That brought up Juan Soto.

The budding superstar smoked a line-drive single to right field. Two runs would have scored anyway, but disaster further struck when Trent Grisham mishandled the ball in right, letting it bounce past him and permitting the Nationals to score the go-ahead run. Soto was thrown out trying to advance to third, but the Nationals suddenly had a 4-3 lead.

Facing Daniel Hudson with a runner on base and two outs in the ninth, Brewers outfielder Ben Gamel hit a long drive to center, but Victor Robles settled under it to send Washington to the divisional round. The Nationals kept winning, all the way to a World Series title. Grisham was traded in the offseason to San Diego.

2020, first round: Never getting off the ground

Postseasons shouldn't be taken for granted, but you won't get anyone waxing nostalgically about the 2020 postseason.

Most prominently, it was played in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the season limited to 60 games in empty stadiums. The Brewers were not a good team in that window, never once lifting their record above .500. With a chance to finish 30-30, Milwaukee lost in the season finale to St. Louis, 5-2, but Philadelphia and San Francisco also lost, leaving the Brewers as the eighth and final NL team qualifying for the expanded one-year-only postseason format. Milwaukee joined Houston as the first MLB playoff teams with losing records.

With such a small sample, it's hard to say if Milwaukee was truly a bad team or if any 2020 team could be judged by its record. But the eventual World Series champion Dodgers (43-17) had no problem whatsoever with Milwaukee.

Milwaukee never led in the postseason. Orlando Arcia's two-run homer in the fourth made it briefly 3-2 in Game 1, but Milwaukee couldn't plate another in a 4-2 loss. The lineup for Game 2 (a 3-0 loss) was quite the relic, featuring Jedd Gyorko, Ryon Healy and Arcia in the 3-4-5 spots, with Jacob Nottingham as the starting catcher. The Brewers finished with four hits.

2021, divisional round: Offense goes quiet in Atlanta

The Brewers were the underdog in 2019 and 2020, but in 2021 the team won 95 games to finish one shy of a franchise record and presumably had an edge over the 88-win Braves team that had won the NL East. But the Brewers had an offense that ranked in the bottom third of the league that season, and it showed in the playoffs.

Corbin Burnes did his part in Game 1, working six strong innings, but the effort obscured a wan offensive effort in a 2-1 win that survived thanks to Rowdy Tellez's home run in the seventh. Atlanta won the next three games, including back-to-back 3-0 shutouts.

Tellez homered again to give Milwaukee a 4-2 lead in the fifth in Game 4, but the Braves battled back to tie in the bottom half, and Freddie Freeman's two-out homer against Hader in the bottom of the eighth proved to be the difference. The Braves went on to win the World Series.

2023, wild-card round: Snakes alive

In 2021, the bats didn't do enough, and in 2023, the arms joined in that frustration.

After fizzling out in 2022 to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2017, the Brewers were back atop the NL Central last year, enmeshed in their first taste of the relatively new "wild card round" format with a best-of-three battle against Arizona. The 84-win Diamondbacks had gotten some good fortune to reach the playoffs at all, helped by the format (introduced in 2022) that now welcomed six playoff teams.

Milwaukee's offense was better but couldn't cash in on Game 1 opportunities, falling 6-3 despite out-hitting Arizona, 12-9. Three players homered against Burnes, and Milwaukee's 3-0 advantage in the second was quickly compromised. With the bases loaded in the fifth, Tyrone Taylor (who had homered earlier) hit a screamer to veteran third baseman Evan Longoria, who caught the ball and threw out Willy Adames at second base to end the inning.

In Game 2, the Brewers again had a 2-0 lead after the first, but Freddy Peralta wound up allowing four runs in five-plus innings, including a go-ahead two-run single by Ketel Marte in the 5-2 D'Backs win.

The Brewers have now lost four of their last five playoff games at home.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Brewers have been ice cold in the playoffs since 2018