There\u2019s no doubt that the first two games of the 2026 World Series have been nothing short of incredible. The City of Milwaukee has waited 44 years for this and is now two wins away from its first World Series in 69 years.<\/p>\n
With any team that\u2019s making a run to a championship, many different factors go into a team\u2019s success; for the Brewers, it\u2019s so difficult to narrow it down to just one. Of course, you\u2019ve got the bullpen, the relentlessness of the offense, and a manager\u2019s trust in the midst of adversity.<\/p>\n
For once, the Brewers\u2019 starting pitching, clever defense, and small-ball approach aren\u2019t holding down the fort. Rather, the monotonous, tedious at-bats mixed with the ability to feed off one another have been driving the boat, and that\u2019s what we saw in last night\u2019s tumultuous 5-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n
Of the many storylines to come out of last night, it was the Brewers bullpen once again, dominating the mound. Specifically, Aaron Ashby improved his postseason line to a whopping 15 2\/3 scoreless innings pitched, with only five hits and three walks allowed to 17 strikeouts, the best line of anyone on the team. He is now second in MLB history with the most consecutive scoreless innings pitched to start the postseason, trailing only 2016 Andrew Miller with the Cleveland Indians, whose streak ended at 16 frames.<\/p>\n
While the Brewers pitching got 27 outs in a high-stress volume, the Brewers offense put far more pressure on the Rays pitching staff by prolonging at-bats. Beginning at surface level, the Brewers were retired in order just once last night, in the bottom of the second inning. Outside of that, the Brewers sent at least four batters to the plate in each inning.<\/p>\n
The at-bats that jolted the Brewers offense awake weren\u2019t lengthy, which is astonishing. But the punches that were landed happened because of longer battles. Jackson Chourio and Jake Bauers saw a collective of five pitches to get the offense started; after that, each at-bat that resulted in a run, the Brewers offense saw at least six pitches.<\/p>\n
From that point on, the narrative wasn\u2019t just Bauers\u2019 ability to put together long at-bats but rather the entire lineup. During those long innings for the Rays pitching staff, they struggled to put away the Brewers hitters. Even in the \u201cshortest\u201d inning of the night for the Rays pitching staff, the Brewers forced Drew Rasmussen to throw 18 pitches to go 1-2-3. A large chunk of those pitches were thrown to Chourio, who quickly fell into an 0-2 hole before fouling off five pitches and forcing the count full. Not that Rasmussen had his A+ stuff last night, but this at-bat was quietly underrated despite it resulting in a groundout, as it pushed his pitch count to 48 through two innings.<\/p>\n
Once Logan Henderson settled into the game, the Brewers offense began chipping away, slowly and methodically. After a lengthy bottom of the second inning, none other than Bauers stepped in and picked up right where the offense left off. Bauers saw seven pitches to open the bottom of the third, and Christian Yelich followed up with a six-pitch at-bat himself.<\/p>\n
To some, seeing Rasmussen come out for the fourth inning was a bit of a shock, but to the Brewers, they saw an opportunity: to break into the Rays bullpen before hitting the halfway mark of the game. Cooper Pratt settled into the game nicely after his first-inning error and proved it after a not-so-rookie-looking at-bat. After a called strike to open his plate appearance, he swung at a pitch quite far outside of the zone, then took three straight to work it full. All three were on a fastball, until he fouled one off before walking. After a few quicker at-bats from the bottom of the lineup, Bauers landed the final blow to Rasmussen with another six-pitch at-bat to load the bases.<\/p>\n
Throughout the 2026 postseason, the Brewers have faced a handful of the best pitchers with the highest whiff percentages in baseball. Whiff rate measures how often a batter swings and misses the ball compared to the total number of swings they take. So far in the postseason, they have faced five pitchers that all rank in the top 50 among qualified starters, including Rasmussen.<\/p>\n
If you lower the whiff rate to a minimum of 50 innings pitched, the number of pitchers that the Brewers have seen in the postseason spikes to 10 out of the top 100. This goes to show that the quality of pitching that the Brewers have seen throughout this run, with all the comebacks involved, is among the top in baseball.<\/p>\n
Cam Booser had the most efficient inning from any Rays pitcher that we\u2019ve seen at any point in the World Series, as it took him just 10 pitches to get through the fifth inning, and that\u2019s including a one-out walk. The next inning, though, you could see the tide change. Sal Frelick isn\u2019t known for his power, until it comes to tying the game in big moments. First, in college, when Boston College trailed by three, what\u2019d he do? Take Auburn deep to right-center field to tie the game<\/a>. The next? Game 3 of the 2024 Wild Card Series to extend the Brewers\u2019 lead <\/a>over the New York Mets. Finally, in the biggest and best at-bat of his career, he hit a home run straightaway to center field to tie the game.<\/p>\n How\u2019d he get there? By making Ian Seymour throw eight pitches. After getting ahead 0-1, Seymour threw him two straight balls. Then the foul barrage came. Four of them, all by just a flick of the bat. Then, he got a gift of a fastball left over the plate, and he didn\u2019t miss. It was his first home run since July 11. This season alone, most of his hits were either pull-side or opposite-field; his hits up the middle were groundballs, rarely line drives; he had five total all season.<\/p>\n Seymour couldn\u2019t find a way to get rid of the Brewers; Hamilton followed up with a nine-pitch at-bat, then Chourio saw eight pitches, and Bauers saw six. The Brewers were in control.<\/p>\n The seventh inning wasn\u2019t as lengthy as what we saw, but it was still effective as Pratt hit the go-ahead single. The bottom of the eighth inning was the final blow. The Rays needed two pitchers to get through the inning; three of the five batters to appear in the inning saw five pitches or more.<\/p>\n Overall on the night, the Brewers fouled off 44 pitches; 22 of those were with their backs against the wall in two-strike counts. The series is far from over, and the Brewers still have yet to face a couple more of the Rays\u2019 pitchers who are high in whiff rate (Freddy Peralta and Griffin Jax).<\/p>\n Patience has been a key approach for the Brewers all season, and it somehow has gotten better in the postseason among the league\u2019s best. The Brewers will seek to continue their success in this department Monday night against their former teammate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no doubt that the first two games of the 2026 World Series have been nothing short of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[327102,292994,363,99],"class_list":["post-895170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-brewers-statistical-analysis","tag-milwaukee-brewers-analysis","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}