At long last, the Milwaukee Brewers are heading back to the World Series.
The Brewers beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-4 in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series Thursday night, securing their ticket to the final round of the Major League Baseball Postseason. Thousands of fans erupted in cheers at an American Family Field watch party as Jackson Chourio caught a long fly ball to left field to end the game and sweep the Dodgers in four games.
The club will now play in their first World Series since 1982. The franchise, which has been in Milwaukee since 1970, has never won a World Series.
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This year’s National League Championship Series (NLCS) was a repeat of last year’s matchup, when the Dodgers swept the Brewers in four games. But some fans had a feeling this year would be different even before their crew gave the Los Angeles team a taste of its own medicine.
Milwaukee Brewers’ Garrett Mitchell runs after hitting a triple against the San Diego Padres during the fifth inning in Game 4 of baseball’s National League Division Series Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026, in San Diego. AP Photo/Gregory Bull
Jimmy Williams came to the watch party from Fond Du Lac. He believed the team had a good chance to sweep the series.
“This is just spectacular, just being in the stadium, watching the (video) board,” Williams said. “I feel like we’ve got a really good shot to win tonight.”
The Brewers have won the National League Central Division title four years in a row and set a franchise record for wins last season and again this year. But they failed to come up clutch in the postseason. Until this year.
The team beat the San Diego Padres in four games in the best-of-five National League Division Series, then the Brewers took the first two games of the NLCS at home. They won the next two games in Los Angeles, behind lead-generating home runs from first baseman Jake Bauers in the 7th inning of Game 3 and centerfielder Garrett Mitchell in the sixth inning Thursday.
The Milwaukee Brewers have the 12th lowest payroll in the MLB, according to USAToday. In fact, the Dodgers’ $338 million payroll is more than double the $143.5 million the Brewers spend on salaries.
Milwaukee is also baseball’s smallest media market, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Dodgers, on the other hand, have won three World Series in the past six years and are in one of the biggest markets in the sport.
But the Brewers notched a franchise-record 103 wins during the regular season, thanks in part to the success of likely National League Cy Young award winner Jacob Misiorowski and a breakout season from Bauers.
The club was tied for the second-fewest home runs in the regular season, with 154. But they had the second highest runs scored of any team in the MLB and the second-lowest earned run average.
Bob Nightengale, MLB columnist for USAToday, said the Brewers have become a “model franchise.”
“They draft well, they develop exceptionally well, and just make the right decisions,” Nightingale said. “They know when to move on from a player, and when they do, they seem to get the right players back.”
Nightengale said the Brewers play what he calls “old school baseball.”
“In the sense where they just do the little things to win,” Nightengale said.
Those little things include getting players on base and moving them over on the basepaths, Nightengale said. That can mean building runs through walks and stolen bases, not just flashy home runs.
“So they don’t have those superstars to carry a team,” Nightengale said. “They just rely on a lot of little guys to do it, play good defense.”
But the Brewers mashed their way to a World Series berth in the NLCS, hitting several big home runs in key moments. Chuck Freimund, host of the “Locked on Brewers” podcast, said that didn’t necessarily surprise him.
“Baseball’s a funny game, right,” Freimund said. “They were one of the worst home run-hitting teams in baseball all season long, and here they are.”
“Nothing they do is protocol,” he added. “They always are doing things that you don’t expect them to do. They win in so many different ways. They find so many different ways to get the job done.”
The World Series will return to Milwaukee on Friday, Oct. 23 for the first time since 1982. That year the team lost the series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
This year the Brewers will face the Tampa Bay Rays or the Cleveland Guardians.
The cheering fans atAmerican Family Field Thursday night are counting on the Brewers to find a way to get the job done this time.
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