William Contreras delivered across every part of the game, and when the Milwaukee Brewers finished off the Tampa Bay Rays in five games Wednesday night, he walked away with World Series MVP honors.
The Brewers took the title with a 4-1 win in Game 5, closing out a series in which Contreras kept showing up in the biggest moments. At the plate, the cleanup hitter went 8-for-21, good for a .381 batting average, and drove in four runs.
That kind of production would have stood out on its own. Then there was everything he did behind the plate.
Contreras handled the Brewers’ catching duties at a high level throughout the series. He threw runners out, blocked nearly every pitch, managed the staff well and was elite from an ABS challenge standpoint. You could make the case his defensive value was even bigger than what he gave Milwaukee offensively - and that says plenty, considering the bat he brought.
Milwaukee’s path to the trophy started with a 3-0 series lead. The Brewers edged out the first two games by one run apiece before blasting Tampa Bay 10-1 in Game 3. Then the Rays pushed back with a 4-3 win in Game 4 that went 12 innings, briefly slowing the momentum.
The Brewers answered immediately in the clincher, and Contreras was part of that too. He finished Game 5 1-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored.
Jacob Misiorowski set the tone on the mound, starting Game 5 and holding the Rays scoreless over 5.2 innings. The bullpen finished the job from there, sealing the championship and giving Contreras the trophy that went with his standout series.
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William Contreras Just Cemented His Place In Brewers History
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Contreras rise with Milwaukee has been quick since arriving in a three-team deal in December 2022, and this run only deepened his place in franchise history. The Brewers had never won a World Series before this fall, and now they have a title, a trophy and a catcher who was named the series most valuable player, leaving his already important role in Milwaukee looking even bigger going forward. [Read more 🡒]