Brewers Are One Win From the First World Series Sweep Since 2012

The Milwaukee Brewers are one win from the first championship in franchise history, and they are playing like a team that does not intend to need a fifth game. A 10 to 1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 3 on Monday night at Tropicana Field put Milwaukee up three games to none. Game 4 is Tuesday at 8 PM Eastern in St. Petersburg, with Dustin May listed to start for the Brewers and Griffin Jax for the Rays.

A win would make it the first World Series sweep since 2012. It would also finish one of the most complete October runs baseball has seen in a generation.

Eight Runs With Two Outs

Game 3 turned in the fifth inning. A challenge overturned a force out at second base, the bases were loaded, and Milwaukee did not make the final out for a long time. Seven straight hits came with two outs, which had never happened in a postseason game. Brice Turang singled in two, Garrett Mitchell singled in one, Cooper Pratt doubled in two, then Sal Frelick, David Hamilton and Jackson Chourio each drove in another. Eight runs, all with two outs, and Freddy Peralta was out of the game after 4 2/3 innings.

Robert Gasser made sure none of it mattered for the Rays. He threw six shutout innings and allowed one hit, facing the minimum through six. No pitcher had done that over six or more innings in a World Series since Don Larsen's perfect game in 1956. Chourio went 4 for 5, the youngest player with four hits in a World Series game since 1946. Milwaukee finished with 16 hits to Tampa Bay's 3, and the Rays' only run came in the ninth, driven in by Yandy Díaz.

Two Close Games Before the Blowout

The series did not start as a rout. Game 1 in Milwaukee ended 3 to 2, with Trevor Megill striking out Jonny DeLuca with runners on second and third in the ninth, a finish covered in our Game 1 recap. In Game 2 the Rays scored four runs in the first inning, and Milwaukee came back anyway. Frelick tied it with a home run in the sixth, Turang doubled and Pratt singled him home in the seventh, and the bullpen threw six scoreless innings after starter Logan Henderson left. The Brewers won 5 to 4.

Three games, three different ways to win. A one run game decided in the ninth, a four run hole erased, then a blowout.

Seven Straight Since the Start of the NLCS

Milwaukee has not lost since the National League Championship Series began. The Brewers beat the San Diego Padres in four games in the Division Series, then swept the Los Angeles Dodgers, the two time defending champions, 4 to 0 in the NLCS. They finished it on October 15 in Los Angeles by coming back from a 4 to 0 deficit to win Game 4, 6 to 4. Milwaukee became the first team to sweep a best of seven postseason series in which it trailed in every game. Jake Bauers was named NLCS MVP.

That makes seven straight wins in the two biggest rounds of the year. No team has swept a best of seven League Championship Series and then swept the World Series. The 1976 Cincinnati Reds swept both of their series, but the NLCS was a best of five then. One more win and Milwaukee stands alone.

21 Sweeps in More Than a Century

There have been 21 sweeps in World Series history, starting with the 1907 Cubs. The New York Yankees own eight of them. Only four have come since 2000, the 2004 Boston Red Sox, the 2005 Chicago White Sox, the 2007 Red Sox and the 2012 San Francisco Giants, who finished off the Detroit Tigers. Nobody has swept the Series since.

The 3 to 0 lead is close to final. No team has ever come back from three games down in the World Series. It has happened once in all of baseball's best of seven series, when the 2004 Red Sox came back on the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.

A sweep is still not automatic. The 2024 Dodgers led the Yankees three games to none, lost Game 4 in New York, and needed Game 5 to win the title. The Rays have a home crowd at Tropicana Field on Tuesday, and they have already shown in this postseason that they can close fast, sweeping the Yankees in the Division Series before beating the Cleveland Guardians in six games for the pennant, a clincher covered in our ALCS Game 6 story.

Neither Franchise Has a Ring

Whoever wins will be a first time champion. The Brewers joined Major League Baseball in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots before moving to Milwaukee, and their only other World Series came in 1982, when they led the St. Louis Cardinals three games to two and lost in seven. The Rays have been here twice before and lost both times, to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008 and the Dodgers in 2020.

In 1982, Milwaukee let a 3 to 2 lead slip. This time the Brewers have a 3 to 0 lead and four chances to close. One win on Tuesday would end a wait that started in 1969, in four games, on the road, against a franchise that has never won one either.