first World Series championship<\/a>.<\/p>\nLeader of the small-market Brewers, the 28-year-old hit .381 while guiding his pitching staff, throwing out four attempted base stealers and winning 10 of 13 appeals in the first Series with the Automated Ball-Strike challenge system. He had a run-scoring double during Milwaukee\u2019s clinching 4-1 victory in Game 5 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s our pit bull. You don\u2019t just walk up and pet him. There\u2019s a chance you get nipped,\u201d manager Pat Murphy said.<\/p>\n
Moments after being awarded the MVP trophy, Contreras embraced his 34-year-old brother, Boston Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras, a World Series champion with the 2016 Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy brother is my role model. I don\u2019t have a lot of friends. He\u2019s my friend,\u201d William Contreras said. \u201cIf I have something to ask somebody, I ask Willson.\u201d<\/p>\n
William teared up when asked about Venezuela, his home country. Contreras was on Venezuela\u2019s team that won its first World Baseball Classic in March, though he was 0 for 13 with no RBIs.<\/p>\n
He and teammates Jackson Chourio and Antonio Senzatela joined Americans Alex Bregman and Luke Gregerson of the 2017 Houston Astros in winning the WBC and World Series in the same year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means everything because that\u2019s the first time Venezuela guys win the WBC and the World Series,\u201d William Contreras said. \u201cIt\u2019s history, history for my country. I love Venezuela. It\u2019s my country.\u201d<\/p>\n
He joined Gene Tenace (1972), Johnny Bench (1976), Steve Yeager (co-winner in 1981), Darrell Porter (1982), Rick Dempsey (1983), Pat Borders (1992) and Salvador Perez (2015) as catchers to win the award.<\/p>\n
A three-time All-Star, Contreras hit .270 with 18 homers and a career-best 94 RBIs as the Brewers won their fourth straight NL Central title.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink about what he\u2019s achieved, and he\u2019s disappointed his numbers aren\u2019t better,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cHe\u2019s disappointed that he isn\u2019t Gold Glove.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contreras was best at leveraging baseball\u2019s new robot umpires, leading Major League Baseball with 185 challenges and 105 overturns during the regular season. He won 22 of 33 in the postseason.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not magic,\u201d Contreras said. \u201cI think it\u2019s the experience of playing every day throughout the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
He batted .444 with a pair of solo homers in the Division Series against San Diego, hitting a tiebreaking, seventh-inning drive in the opener and another homer in Game 3. He batted .357 with one homer and three RBIs in the Championship Series sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n
Milwaukee had several worthy MVP candidates.<\/p>\n
Cooper Pratt set a Series rookie record with six straight hits and tied Gil McDougald\u2019s rookie mark from 1951 with seven RBIs, including go-ahead hits in the final three games. Jackson Chourio was 11 for 24 (.458), the most hits by a player in a five-game World Series. Ace Jacob Misiorowski was 2-0 and allowed one run in 10 2\/3 innings, and reliever Aaron Ashby pitched 5 2\/3 scoreless innings with a save and nine strikeouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him before the game: You will be the MVP of the World Series,\u201d Murphy said of Contreras. \u201cPeople recognized what that kid did for us. There was no doubt in my mind. Yeah, he\u2019s special.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By RONALD BLUM ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Venezuela\u2019s flag draped around him, flashing a wide smile and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3817,110,202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-441716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}