The Milwaukee Brewers just delivered a painful reminder for the Pittsburgh Pirates: a shiny home run total means a lot less when the games actually matter.
Milwaukee wrapped up a four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series on Thursday, storming back from a four-run hole to win 6-4 and earn its first trip to the World Series since 1982. The clincher came after the Brewers had already pounded out three homers in a 6-2 Game 3 win, with Jackson Chourio, Jake Bauers and Garrett Mitchell all going deep against Blake Snell. Mitchell homered again in Game 4, and David Hamilton added a ninth-inning insurance shot.
That run to the pennant is exactly why Pittsburgh’s offensive breakthrough now looks a lot less impressive. The Brewers finished the regular season last in the National League with 154 home runs. The Pirates, by contrast, set a franchise single-season mark with 186, topping the old record of 171 from 1999.
One of those teams is headed to the World Series. The other is heading into another winter trying to explain why a big statistical leap still didn’t lead anywhere meaningful.
"[The Dodgers] may have a bunch of Hall of Famers, but we got a bunch of gamers. And the gamers won this week." 🗣️
Brewers manager Pat Murphy on his team advancing to the World Series. pic.twitter.com/HisyZtQf7b
- Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 16, 2026
Pittsburgh’s season-long numbers were real progress. The Pirates scored 767 runs in 2026, a major jump from their historically weak 2025 offense. Brandon Lowe gave the lineup needed pop, Oneil Cruz kept growing into a real home run threat, and a handful of younger hitters flashed enough to hint at something more down the road.
But the production never stayed steady for long. At the All-Star break, Pittsburgh was averaging 5.32 runs per game and looking like one of the more productive offenses in baseball. Over its final 65 games, that figure dropped to about 3.86 runs per game.
The power was still there at times. The consistency wasn’t. And that’s where Milwaukee’s lineup offered the sharper blueprint.
Even with 32 fewer home runs than Pittsburgh, the Brewers outscored the Pirates 832-767 during the regular season. They also drew 668 walks to Pittsburgh’s 568 and stole 162 bases compared with the Pirates’ 132. That’s a lineup built to keep pressure on pitchers and create runs in more than one way, not just wait around for the ball to leave the yard.
Game 4 was a perfect example. Down 4-0, Milwaukee clawed back with a two-run double from Bauers, an RBI single from Hamilton and a bases-loaded walk before Mitchell’s sixth-inning homer pushed the Brewers in front. Hamilton then added the insurance homer in the ninth.
The Brewers didn’t ditch their identity and suddenly become a pure power club. They simply paired opportunistic home runs with a broader, more reliable offense.
Pittsburgh, meanwhile, too often seemed stuck when the long ball went quiet. Its 1,505 strikeouts on the year underlined just how many innings ended without enough pressure being applied.
That doesn’t mean the Pirates should walk away from power. They needed more of it, badly, after years of running one of the game’s weakest lineups. But power was supposed to be the start of the turnaround, not the whole story.
Milwaukee’s run should leave general manager Ben Cherington with a blunt question: has Pittsburgh truly built a lineup that can hold up, or only one that can occasionally cover up its flaws?
The home run record matters as a milestone. It’s real progress. But the Brewers are showing that the best offenses are the ones that keep finding ways to win, not just the ones that send the most balls over the fence.
For now, Pittsburgh’s historic 2026 season still ends the same way too many of its seasons do - with someone else celebrating in October.
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