Brewers Win World Series

The Milwaukee Brewers are champions. They knocked off the Rays by a 4-1 margin tonight, securing the franchise’s first title. Milwaukee took down the Rays in five games to complete an 11-2 showing in October. They dispatched the Padres, Dodgers and Tampa Bay after winning an MLB-high 103 games in the regular season. It’s a fitting end to the first 100-win season in club history. Milwaukee was baseball’s best team from the end of April. They opened the year by sweeping the White Sox, never dipped below .500, and took the lead in the NL Central by the middle of May. They’d never relinquish that advantage and cruised fairly comfortably to the top record in the league, three games clear of the Dodgers. The Brewers played a tightly contested Division Series against San Diego, winning that series in four despite every game being decided by one or two runs. That proved to be the closest they’d come to facing adversity this postseason, as they swept the Dodgers in the NLCS. They nearly did the same to Tampa Bay, though the Rays pulled off a 12th-inning comeback on Tuesday to prevent the Brew Crew from ending the playoffs on a nine-game win streak. While Milwaukee won every series relatively comfortably, they did frequently need to pull themselves off the mat within games. The Brewers only opened the scoring in five of their 11 postseason victories. They’d generally erase the deficit by the middle innings, then lock down the lead with a deep and overpowering bullpen. The Brewers got contributions from the majority of the lineup. William Contreras and Jackson Chourio played like stars. Jake Bauers was a surprise NLCS MVP, while rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt had a stellar World Series performance. The Brewers got surprise contributions out of #9 hitter David Hamilton. Brice Turang, Christian Yelich and Sal Frelick all were reliable on-base presences. Center fielder Garrett Mitchell is the only Milwaukee regular who didn’t have strong overall numbers this postseason, though he had a pair of massive home runs off tough southpaws (Blake Snell and Tanner Scott) in the NLCS. Milwaukee’s pitching staff was equally impressive. The Brewers finished the playoffs with a sub-2.00 earned run average. Aaron Ashby may have been the team’s most valuable postseason performer, racking up zeroes over multiple innings in high-leverage assignments. He wasn’t scored upon in 18 innings while striking out 20 of 60 opponents. Ashby recorded three saves, while regular season closer Trevor Megill went 5-5 in save chances while allowing only two runs across nine innings. Abner Uribe led the team with four holds and pitched in all but two games. Megill went two frames to lock down the Series, inducing a Richie Palacios groundout to end it. The fireballing bullpen was the standout of the pitching staff, but Milwaukee also got good work from their starters. Likely NL Cy Young winner Jacob Misiorowski fired 5 2/3 scoreless frames in the championship clincher, yet it was Game 3 starter Robert Gasser who posted the best numbers in his three appearances. Milwaukee went 10-0 in games started by their top three of Misiorowski, Logan Henderson and Gasser. It’s the first championship in the organization’s 58-year history. That unsurprisingly makes the vast majority of the roster first-time champions. Twenty-five of the 26 players on the World Series roster and 26 of the 27 who were active at any point this postseason win their first title. The lone exception is Dustin May, who won a 2020 title with the Dodgers. More to come.