The Milwaukee Brewers’ 57-season wait for a World Series title ended Wednesday as their victory over Tampa Bay completed one of the most dominant postseason runs in MLB history.
Once closer Trevor Megill induced a soft ground ball for the final out and their 4-1 victory over the Rays in Game 5 was final, the Brewers rushed up the steps of their dugout and onto the playing field at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. The celebration had been in the making for more than half a century.
“It’s one of the greatest moments of my life,” Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt said on Fox after the game. “Oh my God. It doesn’t even seem real. It’s surreal.”
After moving from Seattle to Milwaukee and first playing as the Brewers in 1970, the team did not make the World Series until 1982, when it lost in seven games. He then waited 44 years to make his return to the Fall Classic.
For a franchise hungry for big moments, this year’s team delivered one after the other.
The Brewers’ 12-2 postseason record is among the best since the MLB postseason format expanded in 1995 to include wild-card teams. The Brewers’ winning percentage (.857) was just off the percentages produced by the 1999 New York Yankees and the 2005 Chicago White Sox, who each went 11-1 en route to their own titles.
“I don’t even have words,” star pitcher Jacob Misiorowski, who threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings in the deciding game, told Fox after the Game 5 victory.
Milwaukee is the MLB’s smallest market. Its payroll ranks only 19th out of 30 teams. In 12 playoff games, he trailed nine times. But the Brewers won seven of those games by finding ways to win in multiple ways. Milwaukee hit seven home runs in a National League Championship Series sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers, but took a 3–0 series lead over Tampa Bay while hitting just one home run. In Game 5, Milwaukee drove in runs using two singles, a sacrifice fly, and a double.
Down to its final out in the bottom of the ninth inning, Tampa Bay got on the board when Chandler Simpson’s double drove in Liam Hicks to cut the deficit to 4-1. As reliever Aaron Ashby waited to relieve Megill in case he got into further trouble, a soft grounder ended the game.
It was no fluke from a disjointed team that got hot at the right time. Milwaukee had the second-best record in baseball going into July’s All-Star break and ultimately won 103 games, an MLB and franchise record. After beating San Diego in the divisional round, it swept two-time defending champion Los Angeles in the National League Championship Series. Even though the Dodgers’ payroll was more than double that of the Brewers’, Milwaukee scored 10 more runs during the sweep to secure a World Series berth against Tampa Bay.
The Rays were something of a mirror image of Milwaukee, another big-spending franchise looking to turn its regular-season success — the Rays had won the most games in the American League — into its first World Series victory.
“Best feeling ever,” Brewers captain Christian Yelich said on the broadcast.
After one-run victories in the first two games of the World Series – including a comeback in Game 2 in which Milwaukee fell behind 4-0 in the first inning – it won Game 3 in a 10-1 rout sparked by Christian Yelich’s fifth-inning stolen base. When a challenge returned Yelich to safety at second base, Milwaukee scored eight runs with two outs, opening the game without ever hitting a home run.
Milwaukee’s championship run was possible because of a reliable core of players that spanned generations. Yelich, 34, and 33-year-old reliever Brandon Woodruff, whose save in Game 3 was his first appearance since July 4 due to injuries, were the only players remaining from a 2018 Brewers lineup that was just one win away from this season’s World Series.
In the divisional round against San Diego, 20-year-old outfielder Jackson Chourio hit a late two-run homer that saved Milwaukee in its playoff opener. Chourio then delivered a single to win the next game.
On the mound, Milwaukee has built a feared arm rotation, starting with Misiorowski, the blazing-fast 24-year-old who made the All-Star Game as a rookie in 2025 after just five starts. For his encore, Misiorowski led a pitching staff in 2026 that allowed MLB’s second-lowest team ERA during the regular season. When he left games, a bullpen with arms every bit as mean and powerful as Misiorowski’s took over.
“It’s just incredible,” said Megill, on the mound for the final out after the victory. “At ten years old, I would be so proud.”
All pieces worked, all season. At the end of the regular season, Milwaukee found itself alone at the top of the standings.
And when the playoffs ended a month later, the Brewers were in the lead again. Their long wait for a title was over.
Gn sports
