Brewers - 010 012 000 - 4 8 2
Rays - 000 000 001 - 1 4 0
The Milwaukee Brewers won their first World Series title Wednesday night by once again dominating the Tampa Bay Rays. Jacob Misiorowski (5.2-2-0-1-2, 86) and the stingy Brewers bullpen limited the Rays to two singles through 8.1 innings in Game 5. It was the bottom of Milwaukee's lineup that powered the offense in a 4-1 victory.
Misiorowski never allowed the Rays to even imagine a vision of a rally before being forced out of the game in the sixth inning because of a leg cramp. JoJo Romero and Abner Uribe continued the shutout pitching, as did Trevor Megill in the eighth. The corpse of the Rays made one final gasp – two doubles in the ninth saved them from a shutout, a repeat of their brief flash of life in the Game 3 blowout – before expiring for good.
The bottom five hitters went 6-for-17, knocking in three of the four runs. By contrast, the top four Brewers were 2-for-15.
William Contreras was named Most Valuable Player of the World Series. He caught every inning of the postseason and was rock solid behind the plate; he doubled in a run and scored in the sixth, as Milwaukee iced the game with two runs. Contreras went 8-for-21 in the series (.381) and drove in four runs. In the three playoff rounds, he hit .373 (19-for-51). Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras, William's older brother, was at the game. They are the 10th pair of brothers to have both played for a World Series winner; Willson played for the 2016 Cubs.
When Commissioner Rob Manfred presented the "Piece of Metal" to the Brewers, he was booed by the remaining fans at the Trop.
An unrecognized benefit of living in Canada: I was spared the hectoring voice of The Man Who Never Shuts His Yap who smoltzplained to Fox viewers earlier in the series that Contreras was a very bad man for challenging so many incorrect calls. Let the plate umpire blow some calls in peace, the close-minded Smoltz insisted. He faulted Contreras for challening a call with Milwaukee up 2-0 in the third inning. A two-run lead in the THIRD inning of a fuckin World Series game?!? What an absolute clown. A substantial social media backlash apparently forced Smoltz, a far-right conservative who has compared same-sex marriage to marrying animals, to "rethink" his position.
Contreras challenged 13 questionable calls during the World Series and had 10 of them overturned (77%). In the NLCS, he was 8-for-11 (73%), and was 5-for-11 in the NLDS. Overall, Contreras had the blown call corrected in 23 of 35 challenges (66%).
The Brewers had perhaps four other players who had an MVP-like series:
Jackson Chourio: 11-24 (.458), 1.000 OPS; tied Babe Ruth for the most hits (10) in the first four games of a WS.
Cooper Pratt: 8-for-19 (.421/.455/.684), 7 RBI, 1.139 OPS. Six straight hits in Games 4-5 set a WS record for a rookie.
Misiorowski: 10.2 innings, 1 run allowed; 5.2 scoreless innings in clinching Game 5.
Aaron Ashby: Pitched a postseason record 18 scoreless innings (nine games), including 5.2 shutout innings in three WS games.
Ashby and Uribe combined for 11 scoreless WS innings. The quartet of Ashby, Uribe, Romero, and DL Hall combined for 17 shutout innings against the Rays, allowing only six hits and one walk, while striking out 17.
The basic batting and pitching stats for both teams show stark differences.
AVG OBP SLG OPS 1B 2B 3B HR TB SB
Brewers .280 .350 .396 .745 37 10 1 3 72 9-for-11
Rays .182 .224 .242 .467 22 14 0 1 40 5-for- 9
IP H R BB K ERA WHIP
Brewers 47 30 12 7 40 1.91 0.787
Rays 46 51 25 17 39 4.89 1.478
The Brewers asserted themselves in the second inning against Drew Rasmussen (4-2-1-0-4, 48). Brice Turang drove a 1-1 changeup to the opposite field (left-center) for a double. Sal Frelick was hit with an 0-1 pitch on his left (back) arm, which seemed to bother him for several innings afterward. Cooper Pratt, who hit safely in his final four at-bats in Game 4, wasted no time in cracking the first-pitch into right-center. Turang scored, Frelick went to third, and Pratt, perhaps thinking the throw from the outfield was going to go through to third, was halfway to second when he realized the throw had been cut off. He was out in an 8-5-4-3-6 rundown.
For the 2026 postseason, teams that scored 4+ runs were 27-5.
The Brewers finished the three rounds of playoffs with an 11-2 record, nine of those games coming against the two-time defending champions (who won 102 games, one fewer than Milwaukee) and the American league leaderin wins (94). Most impressive was the fact that the Brewers trailed in x games and won x of them, including all four NLCS games and WS Game 2.
Misiorowski gave up a hard opposite-field single to Junior Caminero with two down in the first. He retired the next six Rays before walking Yandy Diaz in the third, again with two outs. In the fourth, Liam Hicks stood still while his back/left foot was hit by a low inside pitch.
Batters must make an effort to avoid getting hit by a pitched ball. If they do not, they should be denied first base – but that rule is never enforced. I'd love to see a pitcher argue and actually cite the rule to the umpire, in effect daring him to admit he's not following the rules of the game, but his batting teammates want free bases from HBPs, too, so we're unlikely to witness such a scene.
The rule in question is Rule 5.05 (When the Batter Becomes a Runner) (my emphasis):
(b) The batter becomes a runner and is entitled to first base without liability to be put out (provided he advances to and touches first base) when: . . .
(2) He is touched by a pitched ball which he is not attempting to hit unless (A) The ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, or (B) The batter makes no attempt to avoid being touched by the ball;
If the ball is in the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a strike, whether or not the batter tries to avoid the ball. If the ball is outside the strike zone when it touches the batter, it shall be called a ball if he makes no attempt to avoid being touched.
APPROVED RULING: When the batter is touched by a pitched ball which does not entitle him to first base, the ball is dead and no runner may advance.
Misiorowski got his first strikeout of the game on his 11th out, when he fanned DeLuca. Chandler Simpson lined a hard grounder past first and towards the right field corner. Frelick bobbled the ball for an error, putting Rays on second and third. Ben Williamson, the hero of Tampa Bay's 12th inning, game-winning rally in Game 4, chopped a ball to third. David Hamilton gloved it on the run but fired high to first. Jake Bauers stretched about as far as he could while keeping his foot on the bag and backhanded the near-errant throw while stradling the foul line.
Rays manager Kevin Cash was satisfied with four innings from Rasmussen and opted for his bullpen in the fifth. Rasmussen had thrown only 48 pitches and allowed one run, so I was surprised with what seemed like a quick hook of a pitcher doing his job in a must-win game (and who had been talked about only two weeks before as an underappreciated ace). I couldn't help remembering Cash inexplicably pulling a dominant Blake Snell in a must-win Game 6 against the Dodgers in the 2020 World Series. Snell had allowed only one hit through five innings, with nine strikeouts (including five of the first six Dodgers), and the Rays led 1-0. When Snell gave up a second hit (after retiring 10 in a row) with one out in the sixth, on his 73rd pitch, Cash immediately went to reliever Nick Anderson. Within eight pitches, the Dodgers had scored two runs; they became World Champs that night, thanks to a 3-1 win.
And so Kevin Kelly stood on the mound, facing the bottom of the Brewers' order. He got one out, but Pratt lined a single to left – his sixth straight hit – and Garrett Mitchell sliced an opposite field single to left, putting runners at first and third. The Rays brought the infield in, which backfired when Hamilton shot a 1-1 pitch past second baseman Williamson, who dove to his right. Pratt scored and it was 2-0. In the span of only four batters, Kelly had given up more hits than Rasmussen had in 14 batters. Kelly got Jackson Chourio looking at strike three and then he was gone. Garrett Cleavinger ended the inning by fanning Bauers on an 80 mph sweeper.
An inning later, Cleavinger's first pitch in the sixth plunked Christian Yelich in the thigh. Contreras lined a double to the left field wall, increasing the lead to 3-0. Turang dumped a single near the line in left as Simpson appeared to pull up at the last moment and watch the ball drop. Contreras, thinking the ball might be caught by the speedy left fielder, stopped at third. And that was it for Cleavinger. He and Kelly had faced nine batters; six of them reached base and three of them would eventually score. Tyler Wells struck out Frelick before Pratt hit a long foul ball that right fielder Ryan Vilade caught on one of the bullpen mounds. Contreras tagged and scored; Turang had stolen second and he went to third. When Wells walked Mitchell, he was pulled for Stephen Matz, who got the final out, stranding two runners. Cash, after deciding Rasmussen had been pushed to his limit after 12 outs, needed four relief pitchers to get the next six outs.
That was it for the Milwaukee bats for the night. Unfortunately for the Rays, their bats remained equally quiet.
With two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Misiorowski's first pitch to Hicks was fouled off – and there was something wrong with the Brewers' ace. The trainer came out and soon a whole gaggle of players were gathered on the mound. Misiorowski had a cramp in his right leg. After a drink of water and some chit-chat, he prepared to throw a practice pitch. He spent several seconds trying to properly set his right leg and foot into position, which did not bode well. Afer the pitch, he knew he couldn't continue. Clearly disappointed, he walked off the field to loud cheers from the sizeable population of Brewers fans in the stands. JoJo Romero needed but one pitch to get Hicks to ground to shortstop.
In the seventh, DeLuca struck out looking before Simpson hit a little dribbler in front of the plate. Contreras pounced on the ball but threw wildly to first for a two-base error. Uribe took over, his 11th appearance over 13 postseason games. He faced two pinch-hitters. Richie Palacois grounded out to first, with Uribe covering and Victor Mesa ended a nine-pitch battle by grounding to Turang at second.
Trevor Megill was in for the eighth and he set down the Rays in order on 10 pitches. Trevor Walls lined out to left (Chourio made a nice diving catch near the foul line), Diaz flied to the base of the wall in deep right, and Aranda could not check his swing on a high 1-2 fastball.
Ashby was assumed to be pitching the ninth, but it was Megill for a second inning. He got ahead of Caminero 0-2, threw a pitch in the dirt, and watched Caminero check his swing on ball 2. After fouling off a pitch, Caminero was frozen on a fastball just off the middle of the plate for strike three. Hicks got a double when his hard grounder hit the first base bag and caromed away from Bauers and into foul territory, where Frelick chased it down. DeLuca fouled off a low pitch, swing and missed a fastball above the zone, then took a fastball high and outside, before whiffing on a knuckle-curve in the dirt for the second out.
Simpson turned on an inside 1-1 fastball and lined a double to right. Hicks scored. Palacios took a fastball (99) down the heart of the plate for a strike. He looked at a fastball (100) high and a knuckle-curve (91) in the dirt. Megill threw an inside fastball (99), which Palacios knocked towards second. Turang, who had been impressive for the entire series, ranging far to both his right and left, gloved the routine grounder and threw to first, igniting the Brewers' well-deserved celebration at 10:13 pm (Milwaukee Time).
I trust Ruth Werning, a Brewers fan who will celebrate her 105th birthday next month, stayed up to watch the final out. She lives in a Milwaukee suburb and threw out the first pitch before a game in 2024.
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