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're all about the World Series champs. Congrats, Milwaukee.
That's a wrap for the 2026 season. The Brewers are World Series champions.
Jacob Misiorowski shoved. A relentless lineup was relentless again. World Series MVP William Contreras continued to have just as big an impact behind the plate as he did at it. And the Brew Crew closed out the Rays in five games to win their first title in the team's 58-year history.
The Brewers were the best team in baseball all year, and now they have the ring to show for it. Let's take a quick look back at the biggest moments of Milwaukee's dominant 11-2 playoff run.
Over at Baseball Reference, they have a fun stat called Championship Win Probability Added, which tells you how much any given play contributed to a team's chances of winning a title. We're going to use that to highlight the single most impactful play from each of their postseason series.
Here are three plays that won the Brewers the 2026 World Series:
1) Jackson Chourio's walk-off vs. Mason Miller in the NLDS
Championship WPA: +6.9%
This might've been the defining moment of the entire postseason. Chourio vs. the most dominant closer on the planet with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth. If the Brewers' budding superstar doesn't come through with the swing of his life -- a walk-off knock off a 101 mph fastball from Miller -- who knows if the Brewers even get past the Padres?
Honorable mention: William Contreras' tiebreaking HR off Adrian Morejon in Game 1 (+2.2%)
2) Jake Bauers' go-ahead home run off Blake Snell in the NLCS
Championship WPA: +3.9%
Bauers was the NLCS MVP because of at-bats like these, which helped the Brewers not just dethrone the reigning champion Dodgers, but sweep them. After an 11-pitch battle with the two-time Cy Young winner Snell, Bauers launched a 98 mph fastball into the right-field bleachers at Dodger Stadium to give the Brewers the lead late in Game 3.
Honorable mention: Christian Yelich's 2-out, bases-loaded single off Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 (+3.1%)
3) Trevor Megill's game-ending strikeout in the World Series
Championship WPA: +6.4%
The Brewers' first victory in a World Series game since 1982 didn't come easy. Their closer Megill had to escape a big jam in Game 1 with the go-ahead runs in scoring position in the ninth. But Megill rose to the occasion with a wipeout curveball to strike out Jonny DeLuca and end the game, electrifying the crowd in Milwaukee.
Honorable mention: Sal Frelick's game-tying HR in Game 2 (+5.7%)
