LOS ANGELES – You’ve waited 44 years. You will wait no more.
For the first time since 1982 the Milwaukee Brewers are bound for the World Series, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers in – what else? – chest-pounding fashion, 6-4, Oct. 15 to complete a sweep of revenge at Dodger Stadium.
The club’s motto all October has been Win Our Way, and if this wasn’t the Brewers winning with their brand of baseball in their biggest game in nearly half a century, then nothing was.
GAME 4 BOX SCORE: Brewers 6. Dodgers 4
Trailing, 4-0, after a Shohei Ohtani ear-splitting three-run home run in the second inning, the Brewers had no business wrapping business up in four games.
Yet that’s exactly what they did.
Soak it in, Milwaukee. Let the champagne and Miller spray. You’ve been waiting a long time for this one.
These Brewers are relentless
The cup containing Sparkling Ice-brand flavored water that Pat Murphy brings with him everywhere, including his pregame press conference before Game 4, contains a custom message that reads ‘200 Club.’ Murphy will not tell you what it means, but the answer is within the messaging on the cup.
If you take the letters in ‘F***** relentless,’ and attach a numerical figure of where each is in the alphabet – A is 1, B is 2 and so on – it adds up to 200.
It has long been a motto of Murphy’s. He wears a wristband that reads ‘Relentless.’ And he has preached it to the Brewers to the point where it’s no longer an identity he imparts on the offense; it’s simply the identity of the players.
This may have been their magnum opus.
Trailing, 4-0, after two innings, the Brewers chipped away. It sounds so simple, yet if it was, wouldn’t everyone else be doing it?
And nobody else is doing what these Brewers bats are.
Beginning with a Brice Turang one-out walk in the third, the woodpeckers pecked. Consecutive ground-rule doubles by William Contreras and Jake Bauers made it 4-2. An inning later, they tied it as Sal Frelick walked and stole second, David Hamilton singled him home to chase starter Tyler Glasnow and Turang, Contreras and Bauers drew successive two-out walks.
Garrett Mitchell does something somehow unexpected, yet fully believable
This wasn’t the first time Mitchell had ever given the Brewers the lead late in a playoff game; he also did so in Game 2 of the 2024 Wild Card series against the Mets with a solo shot in the eighth inning.
This time, though, the stage was bigger and the odds were even more against him.
Mitchell has hit two homers off a left-hander in the regular season in his career, but the 409-foot shot on a 3-2 fastball down the middle was his second in as many games this October.
Mitchell shot out of the batter’s box, not sure if he got all of it or night, and rounded first base right as the ball cleared the light-blue fence in right-center. He pointed to the sky with his right index finger, gave third base coach Matt Erickson a leaping high-five as he rounded the final base and thumped his chest as he neared home.
For most of his career, Mitchell hasn’t even been given the chance to face southpaws. One hundred twenty-nine of his 201 career plate appearances against them came this year, and even then Mitchell only batted .234 with a .668 OPS. Mitchell, interestingly enough, struck out less often against left-handers and has gotten every opportunity to play this postseason with Jake Bauers’ broken toe keeping him from the outfield.
A night after taking Blake Snell deep for a 4-2 lead in the seventh, Mitchell rewarded Pat Murphy’s trust again.
Boy, did this feel good
When it feels like destiny, there’s no way to put it in words. You just have to watch.
You have to watch things like the light-hitting David Hamilton hitting a majestic pull-side homer for an insurance run to make the team that doesn’t hit homers out-dinger the team that does 7 to 1 in the series.
Things like Aaron Ashby stranding the tying run on third base in consecutive innings.
Things like JoJo Romero carving through the star-studded Dodgers lineup for two innings.
Things like winning a potential clincher with rookie Shane Drohan starting.
But these are the Brewers and this is what they do.
Before the series began, Murphy said that beating the Dodgers was the only way it could possibly be for the Brewers to finally break through. The storybook ending requires drama for the plot to be most compelling.
“That's the way you'd want this storybook ending to this,” Murphy said. “When you're writing the last words of the Milwaukee Brewers championship, you'd want it to go through the Los Angeles Dodgers. It's the way it has to be.”
And it’s the way it was.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Soak it in, Milwaukee: The Brewers are going to the World Series