The Milwaukee Brewers finished off their run in Game 5 with a 4-1 win over the Rays on Wednesday in St. Petersburg, Fla., and with it came the first title in franchise history.
From the opening stretch of the 2026 playoffs, the word that kept coming up was relentless. By the time the final out landed, inevitable fit just as well.
This series had the feeling of slipping away from Tampa Bay before the first pitch had even settled in. The Rays were already stretched after using Nick Martinez in Game 4, and they were facing Jacob Misiorowski and a Brewers bullpen loaded with arms that kept one inning after another from opening up.
Junior Caminero was compromised, and Yandy Díaz would join him. The night never belonged to the Rays.
It belonged to Milwaukee.
That’s been the story for a long time now. The Brewers took a six-game losing streak in April and later another skid of four games, but outside of that, the season turned into a rocket ride.
After a loss on May 4 dropped them to 18-16, they went 85-43 the rest of the way. Add in an 11-2 playoff run against stacked competition, and the finish line reads 96-45.
Holy smokes.
This wasn’t some random collection of overachievers lucking into a trophy. The Brewers had real star power all over the roster.
Christian Yelich, a former MVP, chipped in during the postseason despite being past his prime. Jacob Misiorowski is going to win the National League Cy Young.
Jackson Chourio is an emerging superstar. William Contreras is an All-Star catcher.
Brice Turang is arguably the best second baseman in baseball.
And then there were the names that kept popping up when games tilted Milwaukee’s way. Cooper Pratt had four hits in Game 4, including the game-tying double in the fourth inning, and then hit the home run in the top of the 12th inning.
Even in a loss, that game turned into a coming-out party for a player the Brewers have locked up through 2033. He had the go-ahead hit in Game 2 and finished Game 5 with two hits and two RBI.
David Hamilton came through with a game-tying home run in Game 4 from the nine-hole and followed it with an RBI single in Game 5. He arrived from the Red Sox in the deal that sent Caleb Durbin to Boston along with Shane Drohan, who also contributed in the playoffs, and Kyle Harrison.
Robert Gasser, who started the season in the minors, matched up with former Brewers ace Freddy Peralta in Game 3 and was brilliant, holding the minimum over six scoreless innings of one-hit ball.
Sal Frelick only had four regular-season home runs, and he still delivered the game-tying shot in Game 2.
The bullpen, though, was the real hammer. Aaron Ashby stood out most, but Abner Uribe, Trevor Megill, DL Hall and JoJo Romero all played their part in a dominant group. Antonio Senzatela also got credit for big outs.
The Brewers kept finding fresh answers even when the pressure rose. Garrett Mitchell hit the go-ahead home run in Game 4 of the NLCS to help complete the sweep of the Dodgers.
Jake Bauers gave the postseason one of its best stories after being ready to retire from baseball and deciding his family needed to stay on the insurance. He ended up winning NLCS MVP.
That kind of thing kept happening because Milwaukee kept winning through everything. The injuries piled up, too.
Yelich and Chourio missed time. Quinn Priester was lost for the season in spring training.
Brandon Woodruff spent most of the year out before making the World Series roster. With those absences, along with the trade of Peralta, the Brewers created room for players like Drohan, Gasser and Logan Henderson to seize their chances.
That’s the formula for a team of destiny: when one player goes down or moves on, somebody else steps in and delivers. Milwaukee has been doing that for years, and this season it reached another level.
The club won 11 playoff games and came from behind six times. They even scored eight runs with two outs in the World Series, a wild outburst in Game 3 that summed up the whole ride.
The final numbers tell the same story. Teams that scored first in the playoffs were 27-13, and Milwaukee accounted for six of those losses.
Even when it fell behind, it kept coming. In Game 5, after losing Game 4, the Brewers got ace-level work from Misiorowski and strung together run-scoring rallies in three of the first six innings.
They didn’t need home runs to do it. Singles, doubles and sacrifice flies got the job done.
Their offense could win with power, sure. It just didn’t have to. With the way the starters, bullpen, defense and clutch hitting all kept showing up, Milwaukee had too many ways to win and too few weaknesses to exploit.
The year started with a few jolts in April. It ended with the Brewers catching fire even harder.
Including the playoffs, they went 26-5 after Sept. 6.
They had already spent months looking like the best team in baseball from May 4 until early September, then somehow turned it up again.
How is it even possible for a 103-win team to level up and get better?
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The praise matters because it came from the other dugout, where every late-inning decision was being studied pitch by pitch. Milwaukee leaned on a deep, composed relief group all October, and the way it closed out this title run only reinforced how central that bullpen was to the championship formula, even if the individual names behind it are the kind of detail Brewers fans will remember for a long time. [Read more 🡒]