Brewers silence Rays, celebrate first World Series championship at Tropicana Field

The Tampa Bay Rays’ World Series hopes – and a remarkable season – ended Wednesday night at Tropicana Field with the Milwaukee Brewers celebrating the franchise's first championship.

The Brewers, playing in the smallest market in Major League Baseball, beat the Rays 4-1 in Game 5 to clinch the best-of-seven finals and set off a long-awaited jubilation among thousands of Milwaukee fans among the crowd of 40,489 at the Rays' home park.

Hundreds of the Brewers fans went onto the field after the game to celebrate.

A day after pulling out a thrilling 12th-inning comeback to avoid a sweep, the Rays had difficulty generating offense against the Brewers' pitching staff as they have throughout the Series.

"I'm crushed right now, disappointed, but it's easier to handle because of what we all meant to each other throughout the course of this season and certainly this last month in October," said Rays manager Kevin Cash.

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Young ace Jacob Misiorowski threw 5⅔ scoreless innings of two-hit ball, shutting down Tampa Bay as he did in a close Game 1 victory. JoJo Romero got two outs, Abner Uribe recorded two more and closer Trevor Megill pitched the last two innings, allowing an RBI double to Chandler Simpson with two outs in the ninth.

"Milwaukee Brewers pitching, it's as simple as that," Cash said. "They've got a bunch of good hitters. They've shown that all season long. Tonight we ran into a team that had elite starting pitching, very good pitching, and then as elite of a bullpen as I've ever seen."

Milwaukee's William Contreras became the eighth catcher voted the World Series Most Valuable Player. Contreras batted .381 while guiding the Brewers' pitching staff and capitalizing on the first Series with the Automated Ball-Strike challenge system by winning 10 of 13 appeals.

Cooper Pratt continued his success at the plate in the Series, getting two more hits and two RBIs. The 22-year-old set a Series rookie record with six straight hits before a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning. Milwaukee's Jackson Chourio set a five-game Series record with 11 hits.

The Rays were trying to become the first team to fall behind 3-0 in a World Series and force a sixth game. Of the 26 teams that lost the first three games, 21 were swept and Tampa Bay became the fifth to lose in Game 5.

Pitching on three days’ rest, Rays ace Drew Rasmussen went deeper than he did in Game 2, allowing one run and two hits in four innings. He had a 4-0 lead before he took the mound in Milwaukee on Saturday but couldn’t hold it, lasting 3⅔ innings as the Brewers rallied for a 5-4 victory.

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On Wednesday, Rasmussen retired the first four batters before Brice Turang lined a double the opposite way to left-center. After Sal Frelick was hit by a pitch, Pratt ripped an RBI single to center but was thrown out in a well-executed rundown between first and second. Rasmussen struck out Garrett Mitchell looking to strand a runner on third.

"That guy is a stud. His stuff was as sharp as it could have been," Cash said. "We had gone into the game saying it was 60 pitches or four innings. Stuck to that. ... We knew this was a big ask, but appreciate Drew Rasmussen so much for taking the ball, wanting the ball, and going out and doing what he did."

The Rays had runners on second and third with two outs in the fourth but Ben Williamson grounded out to third. Williamson, who was 1-for-15 in the postseason before his game-winning RBI single in the 12th inning of Game 4, started over the lefty-swinging Richie Palacios.

Kevin Kelly relieved Rasmussen to start the fifth and allowed consecutive one-out singles to Pratt, Mitchell and David Hamilton.

It was a disappointing ending for a Tampa Bay team that finished with the best record in the American League at 98-64 and captured the AL East title and a first-round playoff bye. They advanced with a sweep over the New York Yankees in the Divisional Series and eliminating the Cleveland Guardians in the Championship Series.

In addition, the Rays were purchased last fall by new owners, who pursued and secured public assistance in building a $2.36 billion stadium in Tampa, slated to open in 2029.

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The season success was framed by the Rays' return to Tropicana Field in April, more than year after the stadium was destroyed by Hurricane Milton. They played the 2025 season at Steinbrenner Field, the Tampa spring training facility of the rival New York Yankees.

"I think that just incredibly grateful for the guys all season long," Cash said. "It's a special group. ... They're banged up and hurting right now, but just grateful for the way they carried themselves all season long, winning a bunch of games. It's as close knit of a group as I've ever been around."

The Rays, an expansion team that debuted in 1998, dropped to 0-3 in the World Series after defeats in 2008 and 2020. The only other clubs to lose in their first three Series appearances were the Brooklyn Dodgers (0-7) and Detroit Tigers (0-4), according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The Brewers' championship comes in the 58th season for a franchise that began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969 and moved to Milwaukee the following year. The Brewers’ only previous trip to the World Series in 1982 ended in heartbreak when they blew a 3-1 lead in the sixth inning of Game 7 and lost 6-3 to the St. Louis Cardinals.

“Milwaukee has waited 44 years, and Milwaukee, you have your world championship,” Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said from the postgame stage on the field.

But this team displayed the resilience of 67-year-old manager Pat Murphy, who survived a heart attack in 2020 and was the NL Manager of the Year in his first two full seasons at the helm in 2024 and 2025.

“This group of guys right here, the 2026 team, will be remembered forever — and they deserve that because they were a team,” Murphy said. “When you talk about this team, you’ve got to talk about people who care about each other. They’re not worried about their own stats. No one cares about that. They care about coming together and winning tonight.”

With Misiorowski, the flame-throwing, 24-year-old two-time All-Star on the mound, the Brewers rebounded from the 4-3 extra-inning loss in Game 4.

“I don’t even have words,” Misiorowski said. “It’s amazing, just watching my guys celebrate. And the city — I know they’re going crazy in Milwaukee. It’s awesome.”

Pitching on four days’ rest for only the fifth time in 34 starts this season, including the playoffs, the Miz had his longest outing since throwing 6⅓ innings against the Cubs on Sept. 8. Leg cramps also forced him out of two outings earlier in the season.

Misiorowski, who broke the World Series velocity record with a 103.5 mph fastball on the first pitch of the Series last Friday, opened with 12 straight four-seamers between 100.9-103 mph. He topped at 103 twice among his 86 pitches, 58 strikes.

Misiorowski didn’t record a strikeout in the first three innings for the first time in his brief career and finished with two, matching his career low. He was fired up after Yandy Diaz missed a cutter to end the fifth. The Miz pumped his fist twice and punched the air walking off the mound.

The National League Cy Young Award favorite allowed one run over five innings to get his first postseason win as a starter in a 3-2 victory in the series opener. He was 2-0 with a 0.84 ERA in the Series.

The teams combined to hit just four homers, three for Milwaukee. The Brewers scored a major league-low 32.1% of their runs on homers and Tampa Bay was second-lowest at 34.4%, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

The Brewers led the majors with 103 wins in the regular season and went 11-2 in the postseason, including seven comeback wins and a sweep of the mighty Dodgers in the NLCS.

"That's a heck of a regular season they went through and showed why they were the best team and world champs now throughout this postseason." Cash said. "So congrats to the Milwaukee Brewers."

Milwaukee’s only other MLB championship was won in 1957 by the Braves, who moved to Atlanta for the 1966 season.