A first championship for Milwaukee
The Milwaukee Brewers are World Series champions for the first time, closing out the Tampa Bay Rays in a 4-1 victory in Game 5 on Wednesday night in St. Petersburg, Florida. William Contreras, the club's 28-year-old catcher, was voted the Series MVP after batting .381 and steering a pitching staff through the franchise's breakthrough October.[S1][S4][S6][S7][S8]
Contreras doubled in a run during the clincher. Across the Series he also threw out four would-be base stealers and prevailed on 10 of 13 challenges in the first Fall Classic played with the Automated Ball-Strike review system, according to the account of the game.[S1][S2]
He becomes the eighth catcher to take the award, following Gene Tenace in 1972, Johnny Bench in 1976, Steve Yeager as a co-winner in 1981, Darrell Porter in 1982, Rick Dempsey in 1983, Pat Borders in 1992 and Salvador Perez in 2015.[S1]
A crowded field of candidates
Milwaukee's title run produced several players with strong claims on the MVP honor. Cooper Pratt set a Series rookie record with six consecutive hits and matched Gil McDougald's 1951 rookie mark of seven RBIs, delivering go-ahead hits in each of the last three games. Jackson Chourio collected 11 hits in 24 at-bats, the most by any player in a five-game World Series.[S1][S5]
On the mound, ace Jacob Misiorowski went 2-0 with a single run allowed across 10 2/3 innings, while reliever Aaron Ashby worked 5 2/3 scoreless frames, earning a save and striking out nine. Manager Pat Murphy said he had told Contreras before the deciding game that the catcher would be the Series MVP, adding that the club had no doubt about what the young player contributed.[S1]
Venezuela, family and the robot umpires
Contreras, a three-time All-Star who hit .270 with 18 home runs and a career-high 94 RBIs while Milwaukee won a fourth straight NL Central crown, grew emotional when asked about Venezuela. He had been part of the national team that claimed the country's first World Baseball Classic title in March, and he noted that he, Chourio and Antonio Senzatela had joined Alex Bregman and Luke Gregerson of the 2017 Houston Astros in winning both the WBC and the World Series in the same year.[S1]
Shortly after receiving the trophy he embraced his older brother Willson, a first baseman for the Boston Red Sox who won a championship with the 2016 Chicago Cubs. Contreras described his brother as his role model and his closest confidant.[S1]
His edge with the new review system, he said, came from routine rather than trickery. During the regular season he led the majors with 185 challenges and 105 overturned calls, and in the postseason he won 22 of 33. In the Division Series against San Diego he batted .444 with two solo homers, and against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Championship Series he hit .357 with a home run and three RBIs.[S1]
