The Brewers Are World Series Champions for the First Time, Beating the Rays 4-1 in Game 5

By The Arena Staff

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Oct. 28, 2026 — The Milwaukee Brewers waited through one pennant, three trips to the National League Championship Series that went nowhere and one gut-punch of a 12-inning loss on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, the wait ended.

Jacob Misiorowski threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings, rookie Cooper Pratt drove in two runs, and the Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in Game 5 at Tropicana Field to win the first World Series championship in franchise history. Milwaukee took the Series four games to one. When Richie Palacios grounded out to second baseman Brice Turang to end it, the third-base side of the Trop, filled with Brewers fans for all three games here, finally got the celebration it had been denied 24 hours earlier.

The only pennant in team history came in 1982, the Robin Yount and Paul Molitor team that lost the World Series. Milwaukee also reached the NLCS in 2011, 2018 and 2025 without getting further, ESPN noted. This team left no room for doubt: a franchise-record 103 regular-season wins, a sweep of the defending champion Dodgers in the NLCS and an 11-2 postseason record.

Pratt, the 22-year-old shortstop, started the scoring in the second inning. After a Turang double and a hit batter, he lined a single to center off Drew Rasmussen to score Turang. In the fifth he singled again, setting a rookie World Series record with a hit in six straight plate appearances, according to MLB.com. The streak passed the Yankees' Brian Doyle, who had five in a row in 1978, and made Pratt the first player of any kind with six straight since David Ortiz in 2013. Pratt later scored on David Hamilton's ground-ball single through a drawn-in infield for a 2-0 lead.

Rasmussen, starting on three days' rest, allowed one run on two hits over four innings, struck out four and walked none. Rays manager Kevin Cash pulled him after 48 pitches, and ESPN's Jorge Castillo pointed to that moment as the turn. Reliever Kevin Kelly gave up three straight singles to the bottom of Milwaukee's order in the fifth.

The Brewers added two more in the sixth. William Contreras doubled to left to score Christian Yelich, and Pratt brought Contreras home with a sacrifice fly to right.

Misiorowski did not overpower the Rays the way he did all summer. He averaged 101.1 mph with his fastball but did not record a strikeout until the fourth inning, the first time in his career it took that long, MLB.com's Bryan Hoch wrote. He still allowed only two hits and a walk in 86 pitches. His toughest spot came in the fourth, with runners on second and third and two outs, and he got Ben Williamson to ground out to third. His night ended in the sixth when what MLB.com described as a right calf cramp forced him off the mound, and he left to standing ovations at the Trop and at a sold-out watch party back at American Family Field in Milwaukee.

JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe and closer Trevor Megill covered the last 3 1/3 innings. Tampa Bay finally scored in the ninth on Chandler Simpson's RBI double, but that was all. Misiorowski, who had been saved for this start a night after manager Pat Murphy declined to use him in relief in Game 4, finished the postseason 2-0 with a 1.89 ERA, per ESPN.

The Series was lopsided on paper, too. Milwaukee outhit Tampa Bay 51-29 over the five games and outscored the Rays 25-12, ESPN's Jeff Passan noted. The Rays' Game 4 walk-off bought them one more night. The Brewers made sure it was only one.

Sources: ESPN, ESPN takeaways, MLB.com and the MLB.com box score.