The Brewers World Series run just turned into a runaway train. Milwaukee beat Tampa Bay 10-1 in Game 3 on Monday night and now sits one win from the first championship in franchise history, according to AP News. Game 4 was set for Tuesday night.
Eight Runs, Two Outs, Zero Chill
The whole game flipped in the fifth inning. Milwaukee became the first team ever to score eight runs with two outs in a World Series inning, and it strung together seven straight hits, which no team had done before in a Series game, according to MLB.com.
The inning lasted twelve batters and produced eight hits, one walk and eight runs. Tampa Bay starter Freddy Peralta, a former Brewer, could not finish it, and the Rays burned through relievers trying to stop the bleeding.
Captain Christian Yelich set the whole thing off. He walked with two outs, then hustled to second when William Contreras hit an infield single. The Rays challenged nothing, but the Brewers did, and the replay review kept the bases loaded.
The Young Core Shows Up
Jackson Chourio went four for five, bookending the big inning with two of his hits. He finished one shy of the World Series record for hits in a game, shared by Paul Molitor and Albert Pujols. Brice Turang followed with a two-run single that glanced off the glove of Rays shortstop Taylor Walls.
Walls called it a "knife in the chest." Garrett Mitchell, Cooper Pratt and Sal Frelick added run-scoring hits, and David Hamilton chipped in too. Rookie lefty Robert Gasser faced the minimum through six innings on the mound, allowing just one hit.
Manager Pat Murphy praised the group. "He was tremendous. Locked in. Gives us a big lift," Murphy said about Chourio, who has eight hits in three Series games.
What "Drag 'Em" Actually Means
The Brewers have a mantra for how they hit: drag the pitcher down with you. It started when hitting coach Jason Lane shared a video of former big leaguer Lance Berkman describing a tough playoff at-bat. Frelick took the idea and asked how he could drag a pitcher down with him.
It shows in the numbers. Milwaukee ranked next-to-last in the majors in home runs this season but led in on-base percentage and was second in runs scored. In Game 2, they came back from a four-run hole to win 5-4 while forcing 184 pitches from Rays arms.
"Our offense is built to kind of chip away and wear on pitchers," Frelick said. Honestly, that is a very Gen Z energy: win by being relentlessly annoying until the other side cracks.
Zoom out and the Brewers World Series story is bigger than one blowout. Milwaukee won one hundred and three regular-season games, stopped the hottest second-half team in baseball, the Padres, in a scintillating division series, and then swept the Dodgers. Every round has asked the same question, and every round the answer has been a long, grinding at-bat.
William Contreras is hitting .419 in eleven games this postseason, and the lineup around him keeps passing the baton. Yelich described it as guys staying within themselves, taking what the game gives them and passing it on to the next guy. That is the whole blueprint, and the Rays have had no answer for it so far.
History Is Not On Tampa Bay's Side
The Brewers have won eight straight postseason games, tying a record shared by the 2019 Nationals, 2014 Royals, 2005 White Sox and 2004 Red Sox. They already swept the two-time defending champion Dodgers in the NLCS. A ninth straight would clinch the title.
The odds are brutal for the Rays. Teams leading a best-of-seven postseason series 3-0 have won 42 of 43 times, and only the 2004 Red Sox ever came all the way back. In the World Series specifically, no team has even reached Game 6 from a 3-0 hole.
Milwaukee is also chasing a first: no team has swept both the league championship series and the World Series since the LCS expanded to seven games in 1985. Owner Mark Attanasio summed up the mood. "It's beginning to be real now," he said.
Tampa Bay still has a chance to push back on home turf, and the Rays were playing their first World Series game at Tropicana Field in eighteen years. Even so, the Brewers World Series momentum feels impossible to ignore, and one more win would finish the job.
For more game coverage, check our sports page and our world desk.
Comments 0
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!
Leave a comment
Share your thoughts. Your email will not be published.