The Brewers didn’t finish the job in Game 4, but Pat Murphy isn’t treating Tuesday night’s loss like a crisis.
Milwaukee left the field without closing out the World Series, falling to the Tampa Bay Rays in 12 innings, yet the mood in the clubhouse didn’t sound like one of a team spiraling. Murphy made that clear before Game 5 on Wednesday night.
"Well, [Sal Frelick's] in there doing a crossword," Murphy said when asked how the Brewers have responded to Game 4's loss. "[Cooper Pratt's] playing cards.
He's trying to figure out a new card game and [Quinn Priester's] just raking him. I don't know how much he's winning over him, but he's just raking him. ...
That's all I've seen so far. We're locked in."
That kind of scene fits a Brewers team that has stayed loose through the postseason run. It has been an impressive stretch: Milwaukee has played 12 games and won 10 of them. No team in big league history has swept the Championship Series and the World Series since the LCS expanded to seven games in 1985.
The loss was a reminder that even the hottest teams take a punch. The Rays won 98 games in the American League in 2026, and they showed they can play with Milwaukee on Tuesday.
Still, the Brewers remain in a strong position. They had a three-game series lead before Game 4, and now they hold a two-game advantage. That’s the kind of cushion most teams would love in the World Series.
The bigger question is how Milwaukee handles the first real setback of this postseason. So far, the answer has been the same all year: don’t flinch. The Brewers won 103 games in the regular season and lost 59, and they’ve already shown in October that they can take a loss without letting it snowball.
Now the task is simple. Keep playing their game, keep the clubhouse calm, and finish what they started. On Wednesday night, the Brewers will turn to Jacob Misiorowski as they look to put Game 4 behind them and move one step closer to the title.
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