ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The small-ball Milwaukee Brewers playing in the smallest market in the majors are World Series champions for the first time in franchise history.
Hey, Milwaukee: grab a brat, raise a beer and prepare for that parade.
Young ace Jacob Misiorowski threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings of two-hit ball, rookie Cooper Pratt got two more hits and two RBIs, and the Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in Game 5 on Wednesday night to set off
a long-awaited celebration among thousands of Brewers fans in attendance at Tropicana Field.
Misiorowski left the game because of a right calf cramp. He got a standing ovation from the Brew-Crew fans, who took over the section behind Milwaukee’s dugout for the last three games.
The 22-year-old Pratt set a Series rookie record with six straight hits before a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning. Jackson Chourio set a five-game Series record with 11 hits.
The World Series title comes in the 58th season for a franchise that began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 and moved to Milwaukee the following year. The Brewers’ only previous trip to the World Series in 1982 ended in heartbreak when they blew a 3-1 lead in the sixth inning of Game 7 and lost 6-3 to the St. Louis Cardinals.
But Pat Murphy’s team displayed the resilience of the 67-year-old manager, who survived a heart attack in 2020 and was the NL Manager of the Year in his first two full seasons at the helm in 2024 and 2025.
With their flame-throwing, 24-year-old two-time All-Star on the mound, the Brewers rebounded from a heartbreaking, 4-3 extra-inning loss in Game 4 when they were three outs away from a sweep in the 12th before a stellar bullpen finally faltered.
Pitching on four days’ rest for only the fifth time in 34 starts this season, including the playoffs, the Miz had his longest outing since throwing 6 1/3 innings against the Cubs on Sept. 8. Leg cramps also forced him out of two outings earlier in the season.
Misiorowski, who broke the World Series velocity record with a 103.5 mph fastball on the first pitch of the Series last Friday, opened with 12 straight four-seamers between 100.9-103 mph. He topped at 103 twice among his 86 pitches, 58 strikes.
Misiorowski didn’t record a strikeout in the first three innings for the first time in his brief career and finished with two, matching his career low. He was fired up after Yandy Diaz missed a cutter to end the fifth. The Miz pumped his fist twice and punched the air walking off the mound.
The NL Cy Young Award favorite allowed one run over five innings to get his first postseason win as a starter in a 3-2 victory in the series opener. He was 2-0 with a 0.84 ERA in the Series.
JoJo Romero got two outs, Abner Uribe recorded two more and closer Trevor Megill pitched the last two innings, allowing an RBI double to Chandler Simpson with two outs in the ninth.
Megill retired Richie Palacios on a grounder to second to end it, threw his arms in the air and was mobbed by teammates near the mound while Brewers fans celebrated in the stands.
Pratt, who was 4 for 5 with a tiebreaking solo homer in the 12th inning in Game 4, gave the Brewers a 1-0 lead off Rays ace Drew Rasmussen in the second. Pratt singled for his sixth straight hit in the series in the fifth and scored on David Hamilton’s single off Kevin Kelly.
William Contreras hit an RBI double off Garrett Cleavinger in the sixth and Pratt added a sac fly to extend Milwaukee’s lead to 4-0.
Pitching on three days’ rest, Rasmussen went deeper than he did in Game 2, allowing one run and two hits in four innings. He had a 4-0 lead before he took the mound in Milwaukee on Saturday but couldn’t hold it, lasting only 3 2/3 innings as the Brewers rallied for a 5-4 victory.
Rasmussen retired the first four batters before Brice Turang lined a double the opposite way to left-center. After Sal Frelick was hit by a pitch, Pratt ripped an RBI single to center but was thrown out in a well-executed rundown between first and second. Rasmussen struck out Garrett Mitchell looking to strand a runner on third.
The Rays had runners on second and third with two outs in the fourth but Ben Williamson grounded out to third. Williamson, who was 1 for 15 in the postseason before his game-winning RBI single in the 12th inning in Game 4, started over the lefty-swinging Palacios.
Kelly replaced Rasmussen to start the fifth and allowed consecutive one-out singles to Pratt, Mitchell and Hamilton.
The teams combined to hit just four homers, three for Milwaukee. The Brewers scored a major league-low 32.1% of their runs on homers and Tampa Bay was second-lowest at 34.4%, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The Brewers led the majors with 103 wins in the regular season and went 11-2 in the postseason, including seven comeback wins and a sweep of the mighty Dodgers in the NLCS.
Milwaukee’s only other MLB championship was won in 1957 by the Braves, who moved to Atlanta for the 1966 season.
Murphy’s team finished what Harvey Kuenn’s star-studded crew couldn’t accomplish 44 years ago as the AL champions. Harvey’s Wallbangers had five Hall of Famers: Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Ted Simmons, Don Sutton and Rollie Fingers. But Fingers missed the postseason with a forearm injury. They also had Hall of Famer Bob Uecker in the broadcast booth.
The Rays, an expansion team that debuted in 1998, dropped to 0-3 in the World Series after defeats in 2008 and 2020. The only other clubs to lose in their first three Series appearances were the Brooklyn Dodgers (0-7) and Detroit Tigers (0-4), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
This might have been the last Major League Baseball game for an extended period.
The Brewers won the World Series at a time when owners are pushing for a salary cap from the players’ association because they maintain small-market teams can’t regularly succeed. A management lockout is likely to start Dec. 2 and could threaten the 2027 season.
This was the first Series since 1991 between teams in the bottom half of payrolls. The Brewers ranked 19th as of Aug. 31 and Rays were 25th.
The Rays were trying to become the first team to fall behind 3-0 in a World Series and force a sixth game. Of the 26 teams to fall behind 3-0, 21 were swept and Tampa Bay became the fifth to lose in Game 5.
___
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
