The celebration may have been delayed by a day after a furious 12th-inning comeback by the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 4, but with a 4-1 victory on Wednesday night, the Milwaukee Brewers secured the franchise’s first-ever World Series title.

In many ways, the Brewers hoisting the World Series trophy is an underdog story. They are in Major League Baseball’s smallest Designated Market Area (DMA), which is defined by Nielsen as “non-overlapping geographic regions that group counties based on television viewing areas.” They had the 19th-highest payroll in baseball this season and hadn’t been to a World Series in 44 years.

On the other hand, they had the best record in baseball this season by three games. Four players currently on the team have been MLB All-Stars, including this year’s likely NL Cy Young winner Jacob Misiorowski. They have a well-respected organization and also have the top prospect in baseball, Jesus Made.

Still, despite their success this season, a World Series title was not a likely outcome for the Brewers. A team in the bottom half of DMA has not won a World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals, let alone a team that is literally last. On top of that, the 2017 Houston Astros were the last World Series champions to be in the bottom half of baseball in payroll.

So, in many ways, the Brewers winning the World Series in 2026 was both surprising and expected.

It was expected because winning games is what they’ve done all season, and the way they won Game 5 was reminiscent of how they won so many games this season.

It started with a dominant performance from Misiorowski. He may have only struck out two batters over his 5.2 shutout innings, but the Rays never really threatened. The lanky right-hander allowed just two hits and walked one batter while throwing 58 of his 86 pitches for strikes. He likely would have gone at least another inning, but a calf cramp forced his removal in the sixth inning. Trainers came out to the mound with fluids, and he threw a few warm-up pitches, but he simply couldn’t keep going.

Not to worry, the Brewers have had pitching depth in spades all season.

They came into the playoffs with the 2nd-best ERA in the league. This staff had the best strikeout rate in baseball, the 4th-best WHIP in baseball, and the 2nd-best batting average allowed. After Misiorowski left the game, JoJo Romero and Abner Uribe combined to throw 1.1 scoreless innings before turning the ball over to the closer, Trevor Megill, to close it out for two innings.

The Rays didn’t go down without a fight, though. Liam Hicks hit a one-out double that hit the first base bag and skirted off towards the bullpen. Two batters later, Chandler Simpson doubled down the line to score Hicks. It was Simpson’s fifth hit in the last two games as he fought to keep Tampa Bay alive. Simpson went 2-for-4 on the day and hit .311 in 48 plate appearances this postseason.

Offensively, the Brewers were not led by the familiar faces in this one. Yes, William Contreras clubbed an RBI double in the sixth inning, but the top four hitters in the Brewers’ lineup went 2-for-15 in Game 5. Jackson Chourio was 1-for-4 with three strikeouts, and Christian Yelich was hitless in four plate appearances, going 0-for-3 with a hit by pitch.

That was a credit to Rays starting pitcher Drew Rasmussen, who was pitching on just three days’ rest after starting Game 2 of this series. Rasmussen struck out four in four innings while allowing one run on two hits. He threw 36 of his 48 pitches for strikes but was on a strict pitch count given the short rest and unable to go deeper into the game. Unfortunately for the Rays, the next two pitchers, Kevin Kelly and Garrett Cleavinger, allowed three runs in the next inning after Ramussen left the game.

Despite the struggles of the top of Milwaukee’s lineup, the rest of the Brewers’ hitters stepped up, particularly rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt. The 22-year-old rookie hit a massive extra-inning home run in Game 4 and continued to stay hot in Game 5. His first at-bat was a line drive single to center field to score Brice Turang for the game’s first run. His second at-bat was a single to left field in the fifth inning, and he would later be knocked in by a single from nine-hole hitter David Hamilton.

That single allowed Pratt to set a World Series record for a rookie with hits in six consecutive at-bats. He finished 2-for-3 with 2 RBI in the game and hit .354 in 51 postseason plate appearances. Hamilton, who finished 1-for-4 with an RBI on the day, hit .333 in 29 at-bats in the playoffs. The Brewers’ lineup simply proved too deep.

“This is one of the greatest moments of my life,” smiled Pratt after the game. “It doesn’t even feel real. This is surreal…The pressure is out of this world. It’s some of the hardest but most fun baseball I’ve ever been a part of. I messed up a lot of times this postseason, but the guys picked me up. We’re here, and we’re world champions.”

It wasn’t Pratt or another one of Milwaukee’s unheralded players who was awarded the World Series MVP trophy, though. That honor fell to William Contreras, who hit .373 in 13 postseason games and was 8-for-21 (.381) with four RBI in the World Series. Contreras is one of only two catchers to win a World Series MVP since 2000, joining Salvador Perez, who won it back in 2025. Contreras, Chourio, Antonio Senztela, and Angel Zerpa also now become four of the six players to even win a World Baseball Classic and a World Series in the same season after capturing the WBC title with Venezuela at the start of this season.

Contreras tried to pull reliever Aaron Ashby up to share the MVP trophy with him after Ashby completed a scoreless postseason. However, the left-handed reliever refused to accept, instead speaking about just how much Contreras means to the team.

“He wants to complete every single day. He wants to die for every single person on this team...He’s our bulldog, and we love this dude.”

So the 2026 season comes to a close with the Brewers winning their first-ever title. A moment 57 years in the making. A crowning achievement for the best team in baseball in the smallest market in baseball. It could be, and should be, a galvanizing moment for the organization and also the sport. The Brewers could easily be back in this position next season, and baseball fans everywhere are hoping there’s at least a chance for that to be true.