Watching the Brewers this postseason has stirred up a familiar mix of emotions for Reds fans: respect for a team that simply knows how to win, and frustration that it’s a division rival setting the standard.
Milwaukee entered Monday night with eight straight wins, five of them on the road, and a chance to sweep both the National League Championship Series and the World Series. A win would put them in position to do something even the New York Yankees’ dynasty of the late ’90s and early 2000s never pulled off.
That’s what makes this so hard to watch from Cincinnati. The Brewers don’t beat teams with one giant swing and a flurry of highlight-reel home runs.
They chip away. They grind through at-bats, get on base, move runners, and wear people down until the game bends their way.
It’s the kind of approach Reds fans have seen before, only now the whole baseball world is seeing it on the biggest stage.
That was on full display in Game 3 of the World Series on Monday night. Milwaukee scored eight runs in the top of the fifth with two outs, turning a 2-0 game into a 10-0 blowout. On the road, against a strong Tampa Bay Rays team, the Brewers slammed the door.
And they did it without needing a home run barrage. Over the last 17 1/2 innings, Milwaukee has outscored Tampa Bay 15-1.
Since trailing 4-0 after the top of the first in Game 2, the Brewers have flipped the World Series on its head and are one win away from their first title. In that stretch, they’ve hit just one home run.
The rest of the production has come the hard way: 27 hits, five doubles, eight walks, 13 strikeouts, and a 12-for-33 showing with runners in scoring position. In Game 3 alone, they went 9-for-18 with runners in scoring position, created 18 chances, and cashed in on half of them.
That’s the kind of pressure baseball the Brewers specialize in. Death by a thousand cuts.
And their fans have followed right along. Brewers supporters took over Tropicana Field on Monday night.
My sister, who lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, said there were even more Brewers fans than Rays fans at the bar.
That kind of turnout says plenty about a fanbase that has fully bought into what its team is doing.
For Reds fans, the comparison stings because it hits close to home. Cincinnati has a deep baseball tradition.
The Reds were the first professional baseball franchise, and their fans care deeply and know the game. They also want a winner, badly.
During a dinner conversation with friends while Game 3 was unfolding, one of them said nothing energizes this city more than a contending Reds team making a deep playoff run. That’s hard to dispute.
That’s what makes the Brewers so aggravating to watch from a Reds perspective. It’s not just that they’re good.
It’s that they’re a division rival doing everything the right way, and their fanbase is responding in kind. If the Reds were the team in this spot, their fans would be taking over Tropicana Field and St.
Petersburg, too.
When organizations know what they’re doing from a baseball operations standpoint, fans notice. They show up.
They invest. They believe.
Brewers fans have done exactly that.
There’s jealousy in all of this, sure. But there’s admiration, too.
Milwaukee is getting on base, moving runners, driving them in, and winning the chess match that baseball can become. That’s the blueprint.
And for Reds fans, it’s impossible not to look at it and think: if only Cincinnati could do the same.
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