ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Milwaukee Brewers are champions for the first time. Milwaukee closed out the Tampa Bay Rays with a 4-1 win Wednesday night at Tropicana Field, wrapping up the World Series in five games and bringing a title to a franchise that waited 57 years for one.
Catcher William Contreras was named Most Valuable Player of the Series. He batted .381, going 8-for-21 with four runs driven in, and his double in the sixth inning of the clincher brought Christian Yelich home for a key insurance run.
His work behind the plate may have mattered even more. Tampa Bay had been perfect on steals this postseason before the Series, and Contreras cut down four of the nine runners who tried to steal against him. Milwaukee pitchers held the Rays to a .182 average and a 1.91 ERA across the five games.
This was also the first World Series played with the automated ball-strike challenge system, and Contreras made it his own: 10 of his 13 challenges went his way, a 77% success rate. He is the eighth catcher to earn the Series MVP award, the first since Salvador Perez of Kansas City in 2015.
The Brewers joined the league in 1969, spending one season as the Seattle Pilots before the move to Wisconsin. They are the fourth club in the past decade to celebrate a first championship, after Houston, Washington and Texas.
Only four teams have never won it all now. Tampa Bay has reached the most Fall Classics without a title, San Diego has gone the longest without breaking through, Colorado has one Series trip, and Seattle remains the only club never to play in one.
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