Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know around baseball, brought to you by David Adler. Today, we might have a new World Series champion.

The Brewers are one win away -- and if they get it tonight, they just might cement themselves as one of the most dominant postseason teams of all time. 

• World Series Game 4: Tonight at 8 p.m. ET/7 CT on FOX/FOX Deportes/FOX One

If the Brewers sweep the Rays to clinch their first World Series championship in franchise history … 

• They'll have put together an 11-1 playoff run.
• They'll have swept BOTH the NLCS and the World Series.
• They'd be ending the postseason on a nine-game winning streak. 

All of that would make this one of the very best October runs we've ever seen. 

Consider this: 

No team has swept both the LCS and the World Series since the League Championship Series moved to its current best-of-seven format in 1985. Even if you go back to the best-of-five LCS before that, the 1976 Reds were the only team ever to sweep both series. Any time you're in the company of the Big Red Machine, that's pretty good. 

Or this: 

In the Wild Card Era (since 1995), two teams share the best record over a single postseason run: the 2005 White Sox and 1999 Yankees, who both went 11-1 on their way to a title. The 2026 Brewers would be the third if they win it all tonight.

Or how about this: 

Winning nine games in a row to close out a championship would give the '26 Brew Crew the longest single-postseason win streak of all time.

Milwaukee's eight straight wins entering Game 4 of the World Series are tied with four other teams for the best streak within one postseason run: the 2019 Nationals, 2014 Royals, 2005 White Sox and 2004 Red Sox. 

Three of those four teams won the World Series -- the Nats and both Sox. (The Royals got Madison Bumgarner-ed in Game 7 of the Fall Classic.) The 2019 Nats, like these Brewers are trying to do, won their first World Series that season. The 2005 White Sox were dominant just like Milwaukee. And the 2004 Red Sox pulled off the greatest comeback in postseason history and shattered the Curse of the Bambino.

Who doesn't love to see a historically great team? The Brewers are on the verge of becoming one.

We could crown a World Series champion tonight. Will the Brewers get it done? Here's everything you need to know for Game 4. 

Brewers at Rays (Brewers lead 3-0) 

8 p.m. ET/7 CT on FOX/FOX Deportes/FOX One

• Game 4 FAQ

The World Series so far 

The Brewers' onslaught against the Rays in Game 3 has them up 3-0 in the series and just one win away from their first title.

Tonight's pitching matchup: Dustin May (Brewers) vs. Griffin Jax (Rays) 

Brandon Woodruff was getting ready to start this game for Milwaukee, but instead, the longest-tenured Brewer made his triumphant return to close out Game 3. So the ball goes to May for the potential clincher. 

Key storylines: 

Can the Rays possibly pull themselves off the mat? 

After two hard-fought, one-run losses in Games 1 and 2, Tampa Bay got blown out in Game 3. The wheels came off fast, and we'll see if that takes the life out of a Rays team that needs a miracle now.

Will someone pull away in the World Series MVP race? 

The Brewers have a bunch of candidates. It could be Jackson Chourio (four hits in Game 3, batting .571 in the World Series) … or Aaron Ashby (zero runs allowed all postseason, including two World Series outings) … or William Contreras ... or Christian Yelich. The list goes on.

The Brewers' barrage in the fifth inning of Game 3 happened so fast it made our heads spin. Eight runs, all with two outs, including seven consecutive hits.

It was a historic inning, and a historic win. Here are five of the best fun facts from the game, with some help from MLB researcher extraordinaire Sarah Langs: 

1) The Brewers set a new record for the most two-out runs scored in a World Series inning.

2) They also became the first team to have seven consecutive hits in a World Series game -- or any postseason game, for that matter.

3) Milwaukee's eight two-out runs are the second most scored by a team in any postseason inning ever. The Dodgers scored 10 two-out runs in the first inning of Game 3 of the 2020 NLCS.

4) Jackson Chourio collected four hits in the game. At 22 years and 229 days old, he became the youngest player in 80 years with a four-hit game in the World Series -- the last one younger was Joe Garagiola in Game 4 in 1946 (20 years, 240 days old).

5) Two of Chourio's hits came in the Brewers' eight-run fifth. He now has two hits in an inning twice in his postseason career -- he also did it in the first inning of Game 1 of the 2025 NLDS -- making him the only player in history with two multi-hit postseason innings. 

See more cool facts and figures from Game 3 here >>

The Brewers' trade of Josh Hader in 2022 was controversial at the time -- they were a playoff contender dealing away their superstar closer in the middle of a season. 

But four years later? It's all worth it. Never more so than after Game 3 of the World Series. 

That's first and foremost because Robert Gasser, one of the players who came back to Milwaukee in the Hader trade, just threw a six-inning scoreless gem to win his first career World Series start. The 27-year-old lefty has become an unexpectedly huge part of the Brewers' postseason run after surging down the stretch this season. 

And of course it's also because the Hader trade was the Brewers' first step toward landing William Contreras. One of the other players they got back for Hader was speedster Esteury Ruiz. A few months later, they flipped him for Contreras in a three-team deal. 

Now Contreras is on an absolute tear through the 2026 playoffs. Not only is he batting .419 with three home runs and a 1.141 OPS this postseason, but he's also dominating behind the plate with his mastery of ABS challenges.

With all due respect to Hader, the Brewers will take the Gasser-Contreras battery leading them to the doorstep of a championship any day.

You can help decide the winner of the 2026 Willie Mays World Series MVP Award. 

Fans can vote for World Series MVP on the night of any potential clinch game -- and that starts tonight. Cast your vote here.

Voting will begin during the sixth inning of the game.

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