The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field, winning the first championship in franchise history. Jacob Misiorowski threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings and rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt drove in two runs, and closer Trevor Megill retired Richie Palacios for the final out to close the series four games to one.
FINAL: Milwaukee Brewers 4, Tampa Bay Rays 1. The win ends a 57-year wait that began with the franchise’s first season as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, and it finishes the best season the club has ever played: a franchise-record 103 wins in the regular season, the best record in baseball, and an 11-2 run through October. For the city of Milwaukee, it is a first World Series celebration since the Henry Aaron-led Milwaukee Braves won in 1957.
How to watch: Milwaukee Brewers vs Tampa Bay Rays, Wednesday, October 28, 2026, 8:08 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field
TV (Canada): Sportsnet
Stream: Sportsnet+ / Fox One
Radio: ESPN Radio, WTMJ (Milwaukee), WDAE (Tampa Bay)
Brewers Win World Series Behind Misiorowski And Pratt
Milwaukee scored in the second inning and never trailed. Brice Turang doubled, Sal Frelick was hit by a pitch, and Pratt singled Turang home with two outs for a 1-0 lead off Rays starter Drew Rasmussen, who was pitching on short rest and held Milwaukee to one run and two hits over four innings, striking out four. The Brewers added a run in the fifth, when Pratt and Garrett Mitchell singled off Kevin Kelly and David Hamilton singled Pratt home, and then broke the game open in the sixth. Christian Yelich was hit by a pitch, William Contreras doubled him home, Contreras moved to third on a Turang single, and Pratt’s sacrifice fly made it 4-0.
Pratt finished the night with two hits and two runs batted in, the last chapter of a World Series the 22-year-old rookie, who debuted in June, will be remembered for: in Game 4 on Tuesday he collected four hits and hit a go-ahead home run in the 12th inning, only for Tampa Bay to rally and win that game 4-3. On Wednesday there was no second reversal. Misiorowski, the likely National League Cy Young winner after a 16-5 season with a 1.80 earned run average and a league-leading 252 strikeouts, allowed two hits and one walk before a leg cramp ended his night with two outs in the sixth, at 86 pitches. Manager Pat Murphy had protected him for exactly this start rather than use him in extra innings on Tuesday, and said so plainly after Game 4: “It’s all hands on deck. You can write it up and hope that they perform like the back of their baseball card, but that doesn’t always happen. You go with what you believe is the deal and I trust our guys.”
Megill Closes The Ninth As Rays Push Late
The bullpen did the rest, the way it had all October. JoJo Romero and Abner Uribe finished the sixth and seventh without a run, and Megill took the final two innings, in line with a postseason in which Milwaukee’s staff finished with an earned run average under 2.00 and Aaron Ashby threw 18 scoreless innings out of the bullpen. Tampa Bay’s only run came with two outs in the ninth: Megill struck out Junior Caminero looking, Liam Hicks doubled, Megill struck out Jonny DeLuca swinging, and Chandler Simpson doubled Hicks home to make it 4-1 before Palacios grounded out to end the game, the series, and the drought.
The Rays managed four hits all night and went 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position. It is a hard ending to a 98-win season that returned the club to Tropicana Field after a year displaced by Hurricane Milton damage, won the American League East, and beat Cleveland in six games for the pennant. Tampa Bay has now lost all three of its World Series appearances, in 2008, 2020 and 2026, and stays on the short list of four active franchises still waiting for a first title, alongside San Diego, Colorado and Seattle. Milwaukee comes off that list for good.
A 103-Win Season Ends With The First Title
The championship is the finish line of the strongest sustained run in Brewers history. The club that reached the playoffs only four times in its first 48 seasons has now played October baseball eight times since 2018, and this year it finally went the distance: a four-game Division Series win over San Diego, a sweep of the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, with Jake Bauers named that series’ most valuable player, and then five games against Tampa Bay. Milwaukee’s only two losses all postseason came in Game 3 of the Division Series at San Diego and Tuesday’s 12-inning Game 4, a defeat captain Christian Yelich framed the night it happened: “If you want to win a championship, you’re supposed to survive some hard things.”
The Brewers survived them, and the shape of the team that did it matters. This was a small-market club that led the league in batting average and on-base percentage, finished among the top three teams in runs scored while finishing among the bottom three in home runs, won 100 games for the first time, and then let a deep, hard-throwing bullpen close the door night after night. The 1982 Brewers, the Harvey’s Wallbangers team that lost a seven-game World Series to St. Louis, held the franchise’s October story for 44 years. As of Wednesday night in St. Petersburg, in front of 40,489 fans, that story has a new ending: the Milwaukee Brewers are World Series champions.
