Brewers complete 3-0 comeback over Rays to win first World Series

The Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 on Wednesday night to win the World Series for the first time in franchise history. The victory concluded a best-of-seven series in which the smaller-market Brewers overcame a 3-0 deficit to take the title in Game 5.

Jacob Misiorowski threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings on four days' rest, allowing only two hits before leaving the game due to a right calf cramp. He threw 86 pitches with 58 for strikes, topping out at 103 mph on two fastballs. The 24-year-old right-hander finished with a 0.84 ERA in the Series and had previously broken the World Series velocity record with a 103.5 mph fastball on the first pitch of the tournament.

Rookie Cooper Pratt, who made his major league debut in June, set a Series rookie record with six consecutive hits before his at-bat ended in a sixth-inning sacrifice fly. He drove in two runs, including an RBI single against Rays ace Drew Rasmussen in the second inning that gave the Brewers a 1-0 lead. Pratt also scored on a single by David Hamilton in the fifth inning.

William Contreras, named World Series MVP, hit an RBI double in the sixth inning to extend the Milwaukee lead to 3-0. He allowed just two hits while pitching and received a standing ovation from the Brew-Crew fan section behind the dugout. Jackson Chourio set a five-game Series record with 11 total hits during the championship run.

The 2026 Brewers finished the regular season with 103 wins, the most in the major leagues, and went 11-2 in the postseason. Their path to the World Series included a sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series. Manager Pat Murphy, who survived a heart attack in 2020, led the team to seven comeback wins in the playoffs.

This is the first World Series title for a franchise that began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 and moved to Milwaukee the following year. The team's only previous appearance in the World Series was in 1982, when they blew a 3-1 lead in the sixth inning of Game 7 to lose 6-3 to the St. Louis Cardinals. The last Milwaukee-based major league championship came in 1957, won by the Braves before they moved to Atlanta.

The Rays, an expansion team that debuted in 1998, fell to 0-3 in World Series appearances after losses in 2008 and 2020. They became the fifth team in history to lose in Game 5 after dropping the first three games. Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash described the team as close-knit and grateful for their performance, noting they were hurt but proud of how they carried themselves.

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio told fans from the postgame stage that the city had waited 44 years for a championship. The team's success comes amid labor tensions in baseball, with owners pushing for a salary cap and a likely management lockout scheduled to begin December 2. The Brewers ranked 19th in payroll as of August 31, while the Rays ranked 25th, marking the first Series since 1991 between two teams in the bottom half of the league.

The series featured minimal power hitting, with the teams combining for only four home runs. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Brewers scored just 32.1% of their runs on homers, the lowest rate in the major leagues, while Tampa Bay was second-lowest at 34.4%. Closer Trevor Megill recorded the final out of the game, retiring Richie Palacios on a ground ball to second base before being mobbed by teammates near the mound.