A week after the Milwaukee Brewers hoisted their first World Series championship trophy, a panel of MLB experts highlighted the plays, games and series that shaped October. From wild-card thrillers to World Series outbursts, the postseason offered a wide array of memorable scenes, according to the panel.
Bradford Doolittle pointed to a play at American Family Field in which Ty France hit a ball into the ceiling area and Jackson Chourio completed the catch. Doolittle, who said he attended every Brewers postseason game except the two in San Diego, described the play as a turning point that felt like a sign Milwaukee was destined to win. He noted manager Pat Murphy repeatedly referenced the moment, and observed that the champion benefitted from a string of close calls. The Brewers finished the postseason 11-2 en route to the title, Doolittle added.
David Schoenfield identified the NLCS between Milwaukee and Los Angeles as decisive, given the NL’s top-team strength relative to the AL. He recounted Game 2, when Tarik Skubal lost Game 1 and Yoshinobu Yamamoto took the mound in Game 2. A 12-pitch walk drawn by Jake Bauers — after fouling off six pitches in a 3-2 count — forced Yamamoto from the inning; Christian Yelich followed with a go-ahead two-run single. Schoenfield noted that neither Skubal nor Yamamoto would throw another postseason pitch after those starts and that the Brewers won the games they began.
Jeff Passan singled out the fifth inning of World Series Game 3 as the embodiment of the Brewers’ run. After Yelich’s baserunning kept the inning alive, Milwaukee strung together a sequence of two-out hits that produced eight runs and stretched a 2-0 lead to 10-0. Passan described the 26-minute rally as a crushing stretch for Tampa Bay and a moment that revealed how different the Brewers were in October.
Buster Olney called the most compelling single game the Padres-Brewers Division Series Game 2. San Diego held a 3-2 lead and summoned Mason Miller to get the final six outs. Miller retired three hitters in the eighth on 12 pitches but faltered in the ninth: Yelich walked and stole second, Sal Frelick walked, and pinch hitter Gary Sanchez also drew a walk to load the bases. Olney noted Miller’s pitch count climbed past 30 as his slider began to flatten and he leaned on the fastball.
Those sequences and performances stood out to the experts as the moments and contests that will linger from the 2026 playoffs, according to the panel.
