ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Years from now, when someone wants to remember this inexorable, incessant, indomitable Milwaukee machine that is one win away from immortality, point them to the fifth inning of Game 3 of the World Series. The Brewers do not simply win games.
They overwhelm opponents to the point of exhaustion, then rip away their will. They work counts persistently, knock starters out swiftly, put the ball in play repeatedly and punish mistakes forcefully. Sometimes, as they did Monday night in a two-out rally for the record books that gave them a 3-0 lead in the Fall Classic, they do it all at once.
Now, after a 10-1 demolition of the Rays at Tropicana Field, they are one win away from celebrating their franchise’s first World Series title, with four chances to finish it off. "I don’t think it’ll ever sink in that we’re this close," pitcher Jacob Misiorowski told me. Milwaukee demands perfection from its foes, and even then that is typically not enough, considering the Brewers' ability to erase deficits in the blink of an eye and stifle opponents with their shutdown bullpen.
They have trailed in all but two of their 11 playoff games and have won 10 of them anyway. Play anything less than flawless baseball, or give them extra outs to work with — or any opening at all — and the game might be over before those high-leverage weapons need to be deployed. Tampa Bay learned that the hard way Monday night, when the Brewers scored more runs with two outs in the fifth inning than Tampa Bay has scored the entire series.
Misiorowski, the likely National League Cy Young Award winner, watched from the top step of the dugout as the inning unfolded, hit after hit after hit after hit, often with one foot on top of the railing to celebrate each occasion. The Brewers led 2-0 with runners on first and second when catcher Wlliam Contreras grounded a ball to Rays third baseman Junior Caminero, in what appeared to be the end of a scoreless frame. Caminero attempted to go to second base rather than fire across to first.
Christian Yelich slid into second and was initially ruled out, before the call was overturned on review. "The whole game changed when Yeli was safe at second," said manager Pat Murphy. "That’s just a hustle play.
When your leader makes that play, that says it all. The game changed because he did a little thing that anybody can do." Six batters later, the Brewers led 10-0. They became the first team to score at least 10 runs in a World Series game without hitting a home run since the 2014 San Francisco Giants.
It was Brewers ball at its best. "Just amazed our guys are doing this in the World Series, the biggest stage," Misiorowski told me. "Obviously, we watched it all year.
That’s kind of just what we do. One guy gets hot, all of a sudden, the whole team’s hot." The Brewers had the most hits and RBI with runners in scoring position in the majors this season. Still, what transpired Monday night was historic.
The eight runs scored were the most ever by a team with two outs in a single inning of a World Series game. Their seven consecutive two-out hits were the most in postseason history. "Here we go again," Brewers hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach thought as the inning continued.
"I’ve seen it happen. This team, they can have one strike left and believe they’re still in it. We’ve done it with two outs so much this year.
They cherish every out, and they know it can happen fast when you stack together good at-bats. They’ve done it all year." After the Contreras single loaded the bases, Rays manager Kevin Cash turned to lefty Cam Booser. Opponents were 2-for-26 with runners in scoring position against the lefty during the regular season and 0-for-9 with men on base in the postseason against him.
It didn’t matter. The Rays had another opportunity to extinguish the threat, but a 106-mph scorching one-hopper off the bat of Brice Turang ricocheted off shortstop Taylor Walls’ glove to bring in two runs. From there, the floodgates opened.
"Especially in the postseason, you’re never really satisfied, no matter how many runs you’re scoring," outfielder Garrett Mitchell told me. "You still gotta go out there and compete. You can’t give them a chance.
It’s the World Series. It’s the best team in the American League. They could just as well do that as well.
You can’t take your foot off the gas." So, they didn’t. Mitchell followed with a single. Then Cooper Pratt and Sal Frelick doubled, David Hamilton singled and Jackson Chourio recorded his fourth hit of the night.
Chourio had two hits in the fifth inning alone. The Rays, to that point, had one hit as a team. The Brewers have demonstrated their ability all October to eke out tight games.
To finally get some breathing room felt nice. It also had another effect that will bleed into a potential World Series-clinching Game 4: They saved all of their high-leverage arms. "It’s just nice when an offense can do that and you give your bullpen a break," Vogelbach said.
"Our bullpen has been throwing a lot. They've been outstanding. In a game like that, being able to give those guys a little bit of a break is always a plus." By the time Caminero threw a ball away in the sixth inning, there was no more air inside the building to deflate.
The only noise inside Tropicana Field was the cheering of the Brewers’ faithful, most of whom had packed into Milwaukee Mitchell International and Chicago O’Hare the day before bound for Tampa, ready to witness history. The Brewers players could feel their presence all night, from batting practice through the last pitch, noting that it felt more like a home game. "Not quite sure if it was 60/40, 50/50," Mitchell said, "all I know is the Brewers’ fans were loud." Their cheers crescendoed in the ninth, when the man who epitomizes the Brewers’ doggedness, perhaps better than anyone, emerged from the bullpen.
Brandon Woodruff, the veteran pitcher whose season was supposed to be over, had made the World Series roster against all odds, his shoulder deemed just good enough to go. The Brewers’ longest-tenured player had endured all the personal and team highs and lows of the last decade of Milwaukee baseball to make it to this point and felt he had finally gotten to a place where he could contribute. There was talk of him potentially serving as an opener for Game 4, but when he saw his trainer running out to see how he was feeling in the eighth inning Monday night, he knew he was about to get the ball.
In his first appearance since July 4, and his first postseason outing in five years, all he thought about was throwing the ball over the plate. He finished off the game that would move his Brewers one win away from their first World Series title, but he didn’t take much time to reflect on the journey. "We gotta win one more game," Woodruff said.
"Then we’ll do some real reflecting."
