LOS ANGELES — In much of the country, the leaves are turning. In California, it might be the Dodgers’ bullpen that has changed colors – from flashing red to cautionary yellow.

With Tyler Glasnow pulled in the sixth inning, the Dodgers were left counting outs on trembling hands. They got 10 of them from four relievers who made a two-run lead stand up for a 3-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Thursday afternoon.

“The starting pitchers have been amazing,” Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia said. “Last year, it was the bullpen ‘dawgs’ and this year I think the starters have definitely been the bread and butter. It’s awesome, man. Watching them do their thing – I’m grinning and smiling ear to ear.

“To go eight innings, next guy goes nine (Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Games 1 and 2) – I mean, yeah, it was good to get in there. I think that was a huge confidence boost for all of us. We’ll just keep clicking them off one at a time, leaning on each other. I think that’s what this group does so special. Today was a great win.”

It was the Dodgers’ eighth win in nine postseason games, 13th in their past 14th overall and 23rd in their past 29 games. They will go for a sweep of the Brewers on Friday night with Shohei Ohtani scheduled to start Game 4.

“We’re up,” said shortstop Mookie Betts, who followed a leadoff triple by Shohei Ohtani with an RBI double to produce the Dodgers’ first run. “But you know, like (Lakers legend) Kobe (Bryant) said, the job’s not done, so we’ve got to keep going and just keep applying pressure.”

The Brewers were supposed to apply pressure on the Dodgers with an offense that put the ball in play consistently and ran the bases aggressively. They have managed three runs on nine hits while striking out 30 times in the first three games of this series.

“That team is pretty good. So are we,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “We haven’t shown our best foot. Like I said, if you would have told me the Dodgers would score 10 runs in three games, what would be the (series) score? If you said 2-1 us, or 1-2 them – you wouldn’t say 0-3.

“But we haven’t got the clutch hit. We’ve been a little bit foreign to how we’ve played in terms of contact.”

The Dodgers haven’t let them get the clutch hit. They didn’t even have their first at-bat with a runner in scoring position against a Dodgers starter until the first inning of Game 3. With one out in the second, Caleb Durbin sent a drive into left field that Kiké Hernandez turned into a triple when his diving attempt came up short. Durbin scored when Jake Bauers hit a single through the middle of a drawn-in infield.

Bauers stole second and went to third on an errant pickoff attempt by Glasnow. But third baseman Max Muncy saved a run when he handled Joey Ortiz’s ground ball to his left, popping up and throwing Bauers out at home.

“That was huge,” said Glasnow, who retired 12 of 13 after Ortiz’s ground ball. “I think that was the play of the game, for sure. Just having a one-run ball game, if it had turned into two, it’s a different story.”

Game 3’s mid-afternoon start time suited TV but made things even more difficult for hitters as shadows passed in front of the plate, eventually to the outfield. Eleven of 19 batters struck out against Glasnow and hard-throwing Milwaukee rookie Jacob Misiorowski in the third, fourth and fifth innings with just one baserunner (on a walk), leaving the game locked in a 1-1 tie until the Dodgers put something together in the sixth.

“That was not fun,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “Even catching, I know what’s coming but it’s still hard to catch. The at-bats were even harder. That’s kind of one of those games within the games – who can handle it better? We got to Misiorowski late there.”

Smith started it with a one-out single in the sixth. Freddie Freeman worked a walk – he and Misiorowski each working the pitch clock. Tommy Edman followed with a single through the middle to drive in the go-ahead run.

“Just watching that inning, it felt like the shadows had finally gone deep enough that guys were seeing the ball a bit better,” Muncy said. “He’s obviously got unbelievable stuff. I don’t want to take anything away from that. He was throwing really well today. He was locating, he was mixing his pitches well. And on top of that, you add in the visuals. It was very tough. But that inning, it just felt like guys were seeing the ball a little bit better. And yeah, Tommy coming through right there, that was huge.”

That was it for Misiorowski. Murphy called on one of his high-leverage relievers to put out the fire. Freeman had pushed the envelope and went from first base to third successfully on Edman’s single. That proved critical when Abner Uribe made a wild pickoff attempt on Edman at first, allowing Freeman to trot home with a second run.

Vesia had replaced Glasnow after a two-out walk in the top of the sixth pushed the starter’s pitch count to 99. Vesia got Sal Frelick to end that inning but gave up a leadoff double to Caleb Durbin to start the seventh. He got Bauers to fly out. Blake Treinen got the next two outs.

After Anthony Banda pitched a 1-2-3 eighth, Roki Sasaki came on for the ninth. His first pitch was a reassuring 99.7 mph after his velocity had slipped in Game 1. He attributed the drop in velocity to getting slightly out of his mechanics not fatigue from the three-inning outing to close out the NL Division Series.

“As a starter, I understand that there’s always ups and downs,” Sasaki said through his interpreter. “So, I kind of take that same approach with pitching as a reliever. And I think what I try to do is just to make sure that everything, all my mechanics are in place so that I can command the ball better. And I feel like that’s what I’m really focused on right now.”

Betts made a Gold Glove finalist-worthy play for the first out – ranging into the hole to make a backhand play then a jump throw to first. A pop out and a strikeout settled things with none of the drama the bullpen provided far too often during the regular season.

“We’ve been telling them all year that we believe in them,” Muncy said of the bullpen’s performance. “Hopefully they’re getting a little confidence and they start believing in themselves. But yeah, we trust them. Every time we see them come running through the gate, everyone on the infield trusts that they’re coming in to do their job, and that’s never been an issue. They’re pitching how we’ve expected.”