The Magic Brew finally ran out, drained of its final drops by the most unrelenting force in all of baseball, a modern-day Murderer’s Row that might make even those ’27 Yankees blush.
But the only type of baseball seasons that end in October are good ones, and for the Milwaukee Brewers, this will go down as one of the best in franchise history. That they were swept away by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series will add a bittersweet note to the final aftertaste. That the ending was authored by one of the best MLB rosters ever constructed, and punctuated by Shohei Ohtani delivering the greatest individual performance the sport has ever seen, will make it seem all the more inevitable.
Nothing is truly inevitable in baseball, of course, which is why the games are played by people and not simulated by computers. All that’s certain is that, in this particular week, at this particular moment in time, the Dodgers earned every bit of their four-game sweep of the Brewers. Just like over a two-week stretch back in July, the Brewers earned their six-game sweep of the Dodgers.
Until someone adjusts the baseball calendar, though, October will carry far more weight than July. And October is when a fully healthy Dodgers team got historically great outings from its starting pitchers, which induced a historically bad stretch from Milwaukee’s previously reliable offense.
And so, Brewers fans are left to ponder the many what-ifs, because there are always, always the what-ifs.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
What if Brandon Woodruff hadn’t suffered that late-season injury, which not only soured his inspirational comeback, but also hamstrung the entire Brewers pitching staff by leaving them woefully short on starters?
Or what if the Brewers could complete their steal of Game 1 against the Dodgers, and perhaps stall out the juggernaut’s first jolt of momentum?
What if just a couple of Brewers batters could find a few big hits to improve on the team’s 1-for-16 line with runners in scoring position?
And what if the Dodgers hadn’t chosen this moment in time to become MLB’s first $350 million team, fielding a roster with five MVP awards spread across three players, a two-time Cy Young winner, and the man who is largely recognized as the most talented to ever play the game.
The Dodgers are who you’d end up with in a video game with the franchise settings on easy. The Brewers, meanwhile, are what you get with the settings on ludicrously difficult. And despite those two distinct realities, the Brewers still were within sight of reaching the World Series.
So maybe it’s best to not let those Brewers what-ifs completely overshadow the what-they-dids.
This Brewers team delivered the rookie revelations of Jacob Misierowski and Isaac Collins, the veteran rebirth of Andrew Vaughn, and the most wins in franchise history. It delivered just the club’s fifth trip to a league championship series, a triumph in the club’s first-ever playoff series against the Cubs, and maybe along with that, a reason to ease the fans’ obsession with Craig Counsell.
These Brewers were why fans lined up in droves outside of George Webb restaurants, courtesy of that franchise-record 14-game winning streak. And these Brewers delivered what became a seasonlong tribute to Bob Uecker’s memory, while reminding everyone of the enduring bond that can be shared through a simple game of baseball.
Beyond that, these Brewers will live on in the countless individual memories known only to the fans who cherish them. A child’s first ballgame with their parents, perhaps on the day that Jackson Chourio robbed a home run. A tailgating reunion with friends, maybe before that game when Freddy Peralta struck out 10. Rearranging October schedules because there was another game to watch.
And it’s all accompanied by the knowledge that, come next year, folks get to do it all again, and hope that even better things await.
