Jackson Chourio and William Contreras are standing on the edge of something baseball has almost never seen: a World Series ring in the same year they helped Venezuela win the World Baseball Classic.
If the Brewers finish the job beginning next week, they’ll be able to call themselves champions of the baseball world. That part is straightforward. What makes this October unusual is that it would also put Chourio and Contreras in the tiny club of players who have helped win both of the sport’s biggest trophies in the same season.
It’s happened before, but barely. In 2017, Team USA won the WBC with Alex Bregman and Luke Gregerson on the roster, and less than eight months later both were part of the Astros’ championship run.
Gregerson’s role was more of a final chapter to a solid career in middle relief. For Bregman, it became a launchpad for the winner’s reputation he had already been building.
Now Chourio and Contreras have a shot to join them as meaningful contributors to a World Series team after being part of a WBC winner earlier in the year. The Brewers have leaned hard on both players to get this far, and they’ll need what they bring again while they wait for the winner of the American League Championship Series.
Chourio’s path to this point came with a cost. During an exhibition game ahead of the WBC, he took a hit to the hand and suffered a fracture.
Instead of pulling out and getting a clear diagnosis, he stayed with Team Venezuela and played through it. The results showed it, too: he went 3-for-15 with two walks and was sometimes lifted for a substitute during Venezuela’s run.
Even so, it mattered deeply to him to be there. He later landed on the injured list just before Opening Day and missed the first several weeks of the season, but he still found ways to help Venezuela win.
Contreras had a rougher tournament in a different way. With Salvador Perez sometimes taking his spot, he never settled into consistent playing time and finished 0-for-13, though he did draw three walks. His defense was solid, including throwing out a runner, but the victory belonged to the team around him.
That is not the story this October. Contreras has been one of the Brewers’ biggest engines, worth 5.7% of a championship over the last two series with 11 hits, including three homers, and a forceful desire to win that has clearly rubbed off on his teammates at the biggest moments.
Chourio has been right there with him, and thanks largely to the game-flipping walkoff single against Mason Miller, he’s been worth 4.2% of a title this October. Together, they’ve become the pair driving the whole operation.
There’s another layer to all of this, too, and it reaches far beyond baseball. When the Astros won in 2017, they did so in the shadow of Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Houston late that summer and became a symbol of the city’s resilience.
For Chourio and Contreras, the burden is tied to Venezuela. On June 24, two severe earthquakes struck the country, the worst it has suffered in at least 100 years.
The IFRC said at least 6,500 people were killed. World Vision said as many as thousands are still missing.
The quakes flattened 190 public buildings, damaged almost 900 more, and created over 4 billion pounds of debris. The humanitarian crisis remains enormous, and the IFRC says its immediate response project will last at least two full years.
So while the Brewers chase a title, Chourio and Contreras are carrying something bigger than postseason pressure. They already helped one team win on the international stage.
Now they have a chance to do the same in October, and no matter who wins the ALCS, they’ll be among the most emotionally invested players on the field come Friday. They can’t repair what happened in Venezuela, but they can reach a place only a few players in baseball history have ever touched.
In Other News...
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Aaron Ashby Is Giving The Brewers An October Weapon Few Teams Ever Find
Aaron Ashby has turned into one of those October arms managers dream about but almost never find. The Brewers left-hander has delivered multiple scoreless, multi-inning relief outings in their postseason run, helping steady games in both the NLDS and the NLCS while pushing his name into a conversation usually reserved for elite playoff relievers. The company is notable too, with Ashby drawing comparisons to the kind of postseason weaponry associated with Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage, Andrew Miller and Yusmeiro Petit.
For Milwaukee, the bigger point is what Ashby has meant in the moment: every time he has taken the ball this postseason, the Brewers have won. In an October shaped by thin margins and short benches, having a pitcher who can cover more than an inning and still miss bats has given the club a valuable edge, and it has raised the question of just how deep this run can go if he keeps being available in the biggest spots. [Read more 🡒]