Category: Baseball

The Milwaukee Brewers aren't named the Brewers for nothin'!

Molson Coors is celebrating the National League team's second World Series appearance by offering fans a free beer for Game 1 of the Fall Classic on Friday, Oct. 23.

Wisconsin residents aged 21 years or older can purchase a 16-ounce Miller Lite or larger on game day and get reimbursed through the company's rebate program, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network.

Molson Coors is also offering free tours of the Miller Brewery on game day. The company is treating 120 fans to an afternoon tour, which usually costs $20 and includes three beer samples. Each fan will also receive a Miller Lite Brewers hat.

“We can’t think of a better way to toast the Brewers’ incredible run than with beer and tours of the brewery we proudly call home," Alison Hanrahan, community affairs manager for the Miller Brewery, said in a statement.

The Milwaukee Brewers will have their ace on the mound as the 2026 World Series gets underway on Friday, Oct. 23 against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Flamethrowing right-hander Jacob Misiorowski, a near-lock for the National League Cy Young award, will look to give the Brewers an early advantage in their quest to win the first World Series in franchise history.

While Milwaukee has won both of Misiorowski's first two postseason starts, he's been far from the overpowering pitcher he was in the regular season.

Against both the Padres and Dodgers, the 24-year-old was unable to get through five innings while throwing 88 and 94 pitches and giving up a total of three earned runs.

What can we expect from The Miz in this year's World Series?

The World Series starts tomorrow!

This is one of the only times of the year where the entire baseball watching fandom is able to settle in and focus on the same thing. It’s time to enjoy baseball at the highest level available.

As we’re all watching the games, what are you looking forward to?

What are you hoping for with this World Series?

• Are you rooting for one of the teams?
• Is there a particular player you are hoping shines?
• Are you just hoping it goes a full seven games?
• Something else?

Whatever it is you are rooting for in the World Series, let us know!

You may just give others in the comments something to be excited for with you.

Please keep in mind our Purple Row Community Guidelines when you’re commenting. Thanks!

Hal Steinbrenner identified a Yankees problem in not just 2026 but 2025: a lineup that “twice now,” he said, “just hasn’t lived up to their end of the bargain.”

And so after sparing general manager Brian Cashman and manager Aaron Boone, the Yankees owner shifted his gaze toward the hitters and the group that leads them.

“I’m going to look at all the coaching, like I do every year, and yes, I’m definitely focused on the offense and on the hitting,” Steinbrenner said at the postmortem news conference Wednesday, when a potential target was placed on James Rowson and the staff under him.

For each of the past three seasons, Rowson has been the club’s hitting coach and Casey Dykes has been assistant hitting coach. Before last season, the Yankees moved on from another assistant, Pat Roessler, and added Jake Hirst.

Rowson, Dykes and Hirst led a 2026 attack that is difficult to assess. In the regular season, the Yankees finished tied for ninth in runs scored largely on the back of the second-most home runs slugged.

As has become expected, the Yankees were strong in drawing walks (fifth) and poor at collecting hits (a fifth-worst .235 batting average) while striking out too often (fourth most). In the postseason, the Yankees lineup was incredible against the Red Sox and inept against the Rays.

Of course, the above numbers were accumulated with just 383 total plate appearances from Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, who left massive voids that are impossible to replace and, thus, were not replaced.

Nonetheless, the Yankees expected more from Jazz Chisholm Jr., whose regular-season OPS dropped 102 points from 2025. And from Trent Grisham (108-point plunge), Ryan McMahon (58) and Austin Wells (88). Anthony Volpe and Jasson Domínguez stagnated.

The only true step forward belonged to Ben Rice. George Lombard Jr. and Spencer Jones debuted with promise, but was that more a reflection of the Yankees’ player-development system or major league coaches?

“We do feel like there were guys that I feel like had, call it ‘down years’ or whatever — not to what I believe they’re capable of,” Boone said before exempting Wells, who began brutally but found his stroke by August. “Some of that is young players that go through it. … But there were a handful of guys that I feel like probably underperformed expectations. So you’re constantly looking into that.”

In Boone’s mind at least, Rowson is not to blame.

“I think James leads a great hitting group,” he said. “I’ve been really impressed with the culture that he’s created year in and year out over the last few seasons. So there’s a lot of reasons that go into why there’s underperformance in certain areas of the club, and you try and address those all as best you can.”

Rowson took over for Sean Casey, who had taken over midseason in 2023 for the hit-strikes-hard, analytically minded Dillon Lawson.

The personable Rowson, a former Yankees minor leaguer and minor league hitting instructor, is popular in the clubhouse and regarded less for a hitting philosophy and more for his connection with the players.

His greatest connection could be his greatest lifeline. Rowson is close with Judge, whose relationship dates back to Rowson’s days as the Yankees’ minor league hitting coordinator while Judge was just an intriguing prospect.

Judge vouched for Rowson upon being hired and certainly will be heard before the Yankees make decisions regarding their coaching staff. Steinbrenner said he and Judge “had a great conversation [Tuesday] over a number of subjects.”

In Rowson’s first two seasons as Yankees hitting coach, the club won the American League Silver Slugger award. Last October, the Yankees were knocked out by the Blue Jays predominantly because their pitching, and not hitting, failed them, but Steinbrenner believes the problem with the offense was not isolated to 2026.

“It wasn’t just a one-year deal,” he said of a club that led baseball in runs scored in 2025, but also struck out the third-most times and then fell to a team that hit better for contact. “It’s two years now, and I’m seeing some of the same things.

“And yes, we need to get to the bottom of it.”

There were more issues (and more significant injuries) in 2026, though Rowson, like all Yankees, will be ultimately judged for his offense’s performance in the postseason.

The Yankees scored 18 runs in a two-game sweep of the Red Sox. They then scored five runs on 12 hits in a three-game sweep at the Rays’ hands, when the long ball could not be found and there were little traces of small ball.

For the majority of the playoff run, Rowson was not around the team because he tended to a family medical emergency.

Steinbrenner said the team would look into “everything” regarding the hitting issues, which could mean personnel — the Yankees could conceivably add a new third baseman, second baseman and perhaps center fielder that could change the dynamic of their lineup — and could mean the coaches in charge of that personnel.

“I feel like overall, our offensive preparation is very good and how the table is set and kind of the program that J-Row leads,” Boone said. “But we didn’t perform what I believe is up to our capabilities offensively, and we got to look into certainly all of that.”

The Dodgers won the trade deadline with the acquisition of Tarik Skubal — but that doesn’t mean they ultimately prevailed.

The Brewers were reportedly in the mix to land Skubal in a blockbuster trade, but Milwaukee managed to sweep the Dodgers despite losing out on the two-time American League Cy Young Award winner.

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio discussed the pursuit of Skubal and slipped in a slight jab directed at the Dodgers during an appearance on The Post’s “The Show” podcast hosted by Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman.

“This team was built, not bought. It’s critical to look at how we got here, and because I want to have sustained success, we had to do that by being careful about how many prospects we gave up,” Attanasio said.

“I thought a lot about it. If we had not won that Game 4, we would’ve seen Skubal and [Yoshinobu Yamamoto] again, and we could’ve been looking at Game 7.”

The 2026 World Series brings an interesting conversation to light as the Brewers and Rays managed to reach baseball’s biggest stage as small-market teams.

The Dodgers had the highest payroll of MLB’s final four teams, but were eliminated in four games by Milwaukee.

Attanasio’s comments ring true, the Brewers have taken years to build a winning team and it appears the squad has a strong chance of hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy. But many of the Dodgers’ biggest critics tend to overlook the team’s top farm system.

While money is no object for the Dodgers, the team wouldn’t have won back-to-back World Series if the organization didn’t have the ability to make blockbuster trades because of its top prospects.

Skubal didn’t guarantee the Dodgers another ring, but it certainly improved their chances.

Where the Dodgers go this winter will likely determine how long the dynasty lasts for LA.

Todd Benzinger, a key member of the Reds’ 1990 World Series championship team, died on Wednesday, the team announced.

He was 63.

“Todd will forever be remembered by Reds fans for catching the final out of the 1990 World Series, but those of us who had the privilege of knowing him will remember so much more,” Rick Walls, executive director of the Reds Hall of Fame Museum, said in a statement.

“Todd remained close to the Cincinnati community and was a tremendous friend to the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum, generously participating in our events and sharing his time with fans. We will miss his friendship, his kindness and his presence in our community.”

The first baseman’s cause of death has yet to be announced, but Hall of Fame shortstop Barry Larkin, a Reds teammate of Benzinger, said that his death came as a “shock.”

“I saw him at an event this past summer in Cincinnati and he looked good. It’s kind of a shock out of nowhere,” Larkin told MLB.com. “I know he’s got some young kids, so I feel really bad for his family.”

A Cincinnati-area native, Benzinger was drafted by the Red Sox out of high school in 1981 and spent two MLB seasons in Boston before being traded to his hometown Reds during the 1988 offseason.

Benzinger spent parts of three seasons with the Reds before they dealt him to the Royals midway through the 1991 season.

His most famous moment in Cincinnati was catching the final out in Game 4 of the 1990 World Series to seal the Reds’ most recent championship.

Across his nine-year MLB career, Benzinger put up a slash line of .257/.301/.386 with 733 hits and 376 RBIs in 924 games.

After retiring in 1995, Benzinger maintained a close relationship with the Reds and was a regular at select events and team camps.

He also managed the Dayton Dragons, Cincinnati’s High-A affiliate, from 2009-10.

“He was a super nice guy,” Larkin said. “He was always a hard worker, not real loud. Just about doing his business. He was just a steady, consistent contributor. There was no craziness about him. He fit in well with the team.

“Just a really good, solid guy.”

Welcome to our series grading every member of the San Diego Padres’ 40-man roster. The roster being evaluated is current as of Oct. 18, prior to the end of the World Series. Because of that, it will include players who will be free agents once the postseason concludes. Each player will be graded on their performance in the 2026 season, including the playoffs. That performance will be weighted based on how much time the player spent with the team (availability is the best ability). 

The Veteran Shortstop

When Xander Bogaerts was signed to an 11-year, $280 million contract prior to the 2023 season (wow, that’s still insane to think about), he was expected to man shortstop for the next several years for San Diego. He’s done so faithfully and has been available for the majority of his tenure thus far. Bogaerts has played in 130-plus games in three of four seasons with the Padres. However, he has yet to perform better than his first year in San Diego (4.2 Wins Above Replacement).

Overall Grade: C+

Bogaerts’ production has continued to decline year by year. This season was no different, with the shortstop posting a .231/.332/.344 slash line and 13 home runs. The homer total was an increase from the last two seasons, but his batting average took a sharp downturn. Bogaerts’ bat was downright anemic apart from certain portions of the year.

That being said, Bogaerts ended the season batting .315 in September and slashed .286/.348/.476 with a home run in the playoffs. His defense took a step back from his stellar performance in 2025 (+6 Fielding Run Value, +7 Outs Above Average), but he was still solid at the position with +4 FRV and +3 OAA. Bogaerts manned shortstop faithfully for the Friars, playing in 151 games for San Diego.

The biggest question for Bogaerts is whether his offense can return to form. Since joining San Diego, he has yet to prove he can make a difference with his bat apart from a solid 2023 campaign. That being said, Bogaerts was somewhat unlucky in 2026. The veteran shortstop batted .231 with an expected batting average of .248. That’s not a great deal better, but it’s certainly an improvement.

Miguel Rojas isn’t done with baseball.

The veteran infielder announced his retirement from Major League Baseball after the Dodgers were swept in the National League Championship Series by the Brewers. But Rojas will represent his home country one last time to play in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League for the Tiburones de La Guaira club.

View this post on Instagram

The Dodgers World Series hero will participate in special games for the team on Nov. 14 and 15 at LoanDepot Park in Miami.

Turns out Game 4 of the NLCS won’t be Rojas’ final game of his career.

“One last time on the field. One last time representing Venezuela,” Rojas said in an Instagram caption.

Rojas previously expressed disappointment with the World Baseball Classic after he was not able to participate in the spring tournament due to issues obtaining insurance on his MLB contract. The 37-year-old has never participated in a WBC and the 2026 tournament was his last chance before he retired.

“I didn’t know that my chance to go represent my country for the first and only time, probably as a player, was gonna get blocked because of an insurance problem,” Rojas said. “Even though we know we have to be ready for the season and we have to play and be healthy for our contract, at the end of the day, we didn’t know all those restrictions were gonna be in place the way they are right now.”

Rojas wasn’t able to represent Venezuela in the WBC, but he will play one last time for his home country next month.

On the newest Rays Your Voice, I break down the Rays’ pennant-clinching game 6 win over the Guardians, and what the atmosphere was like inside Tropicana Field.

About halfway through the episode, I am joined by Danny Russell to preview the World Series matchup against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Stay tuned for instant reaction podcasts after World Series games, which will be streamed live from our YouTube channel. All episodes are also available wherever you get your podcasts!

The Stephen Vogt as next Mariners manager rumors can officially be put to bed. Vogt told Cleveland media at today’s Guardians end-of-season media availability that he is coming back to Cleveland.

Here’s Vogt speaking directly on it:

Vogt’s name has been connected by some to the Mariners managerial search since the position became vacant, despite him being under contract with the Guardians, meaning the two teams would have to pull off a trade in order to get Vogt to Seattle – an extremely rare occurrence, and one that would require the Guardians to willingly part with a manager who has overseen three straight playoff appearances in the three years he’s been with the club. The flames of this fantasy were stoked by geography – Vogt’s family is based in the Olympia area, and the former catcher got his pro coaching start with the Mariners in 2023.

Those flames blew into their biggest fire yet when Anthony Castrovince, a long-tenured MLB.com reporter and generally one of the Voices We Trust around here, went on Cleveland sports radio and said that in his “personal observation” it “kills” Vogt to be away from his family:

Now, Castrovince wasn’t exactly speaking as a journalist here, but more as an opinion-giver on what he’s perceived over Vogt’s tenure, but there’s a reason there’s no “personal observation” class taught in J-school. This soundbite obviously got picked up and bandied about as proof that Vogt might be on the move back to Seattle, logic and facts be darned. It’s a good reminder that smoke doesn’t necessarily mean fire in this process, and the best voices to listen to are the local, deeply informed ones – such as Ryan Divish in The Seattle Times, who called the Vogt idea a “nonstarter” weeks ago.

It’s also a reminder that the Mariners front office – and specifically Jerry Dipoto – despise internal leaks: recall the brouhaha around who broke the news about Scott Servais’s firing in 2024. There’s a very good chance the list of managerial candidates that circulates publicly vs. the internal list has one or two or zero overlapping names. A more constructive path is to think of what qualities the Mariners might prize most highly in a managerial candidate, and then seek to identify people who fit those qualifications. Teaser: tomorrow we’ll be publishing a wishlist of what the LL staff considers non-negotiables for a future manager that you can refer to in building your own list.

The 2026 World Series creeps ever closer.

Both teams participated in World Series Media Day on Thursday before the action finally gets underway Friday night in Milwaukee.

Which team are you pulling for to win its first World Series? Personally, a good friend of mine is a diehard Rays fan so I’m throwing my weight behind Tampa Bay to beat Milwaukee.

For those who will be watching even with the Braves not involved for the fifth straight year, here’s an appetizer MLB posted on its YouTube account Thursday.

And for those who are only particularly interested in watching when the Braves are involved, the timestamp you’re looking for is 47:30.

The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays now know the umpires that will take them through the 2026 World Series.

James Hoye has been named the crew chief of the nine-umpire crew that will work this year's Fall Classic, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday, Oct. 22. There are seven MLB umpires assigned to the field with a rotation each game that will ensure a different person is behind home plate. There are also two MLB umpires assigned to manage the league's replay system throughout the series.

The Brewers and Rays are set to open the 2026 World Series with Game 1 in Milwaukee on Friday. Here's a look at the umpires selected to work the series and their assignments for each game:

After the Brewers clinched the pennant, the first person I reached out to was my dad.

My father was born and raised in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. He’s been a Brewers fan his entire life, no doubt a consequence of coming of age during the franchise’s glory years in the late ’70s and early ’80s. When I was a kid, he’d tell me about (and show me highlights of) players like Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Sal Bando, and Rollie Fingers.

In 1982, he was 15, and the Brewers were the best team he’d ever seen. Yount was at short, Molitor at third, Gantner at second, and his cousin Tom was Bernie Brewer. If he had friends he wanted to impress, he’d have Tom wave at him from the top of the slide.

My dad had been going to games at Milwaukee County Stadium for years thanks to his uncle, who would take him whenever he didn’t have school. But that fall, his sister took him to see the Brewers play the Angels in the ALCS. The Brewers beat the Angels, but they went on to lose the World Series to the Cardinals in seven games. I asked him whether that loss took the air out of him.

“If anything, it made me more of a fan,” he said. The Brewers were still a great team, one of the best in baseball, and to him, it looked like they had what it took to win a World Series. They’d make it back soon enough.

But slowly, those late ’70s and early ’80s Brewers teams fell apart. While Yount and Molitor remained, Gorman Thomas and Don Money were gone by the end of the ’83 season, Don Sutton by the end of ’84, Fingers by ’86, and Ben Oglivie by ’87.

From 1988 to 2007, the Brewers won 90 games just once and finished under .500 more often than not. As my dad got older, his fandom faded a little, too. He went to college, moved away, and spent much of those 20 years working, preoccupied with more immediate concerns than the Brewers’ record. Baseball is magical, but it’s easier to see the magic when you’re a kid. He never stopped being a fan, but the love he’d had for those late ’70s and early ’80s teams didn’t quite return. Not until I came along.

He showed me the Brewers, and somewhere along the way, I fell in love with them on my own.

We visited family in Milwaukee in 2007, and my dad took me to a game at Miller Park, the first baseball game I ever saw in person. Rickie Weeks hit a walk-off single, and that was it: I was officially a Brewers fan, too. What my dad felt as a kid watching Yount and Molitor, I felt watching Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Yovani Gallardo, and Rickie Weeks.

And because I cared about the Brewers, he started caring about them again, too. When he’d pick me up from school or take me to practice, he’d already have the Brewers game on the radio. He’d given me the team. Without meaning to, I gave it back.

I was six years old in 2008, the year my dad really got back into the Brewers. He remembers the CC Sabathia trade fondly, as many fans do. CC only pitched half a season in Milwaukee, but that run was unforgettable. More than that, as my dad put it, it was the “first time in (his) memory that he ever saw the Brewers go after a big name midseason.” That team felt different from the teams that came before it.

As I fell in love with Fielder, Braun, Nyjer Morgan, and the 2011 squad, he did too. That team didn’t make it to the World Series, and neither did the 2018 team or the 2025 team, but our love for the Brewers never wavered. Whether or not the Brewers were doing well, we made a point of watching every game we could together.

Sometimes that meant complaining about the roster and praying for a .500 season, and sometimes it meant hoping the Brewers would finally make it back to the World Series. As every season ended in heartbreak, some more than others, the hope my dad had had for the 1982 team stayed with him, and with me. Someday, maybe next season, they’d be back in the World Series.

Now, for the first time since my dad was 15, the Brewers are back in the World Series. This year’s team is also different. My dad, who watched the ’82 team in person, says it’s the most fun Brewers team he’s ever seen. He loves Pat Murphy and thinks Murphy has them playing “as a team” more than any other version of the Brewers he’s seen. No one player is bigger than the team, and no one lets his ego change the dynamic. No matter who’s in the starting lineup, it’s all the Brewers. He loves the small ball, too: “four hits in an inning instead of waiting around for someone to hit a homer.”

I asked him what it would mean if they finally won it.

“Like many people have said: just one before I die.”

I’m in my hometown for the playoffs for the first time since 2019, so I’ve been watching almost every game with him at my parents’ house. As is often the case with parents, my dad and I don’t always know what to say to each other. When the Brewers are on, we never have to figure it out.

It turns out that works with strangers, too. During last year’s playoffs, I met a guy wearing a Brewers hat in an airport in Portugal, of all places. We were both jet-lagged and tired, but we immediately flashed each other a smile and struck up a conversation about the team. We didn’t have to explain anything. We both knew about 1982, 2011, 2018, the Cardinals, the Cubs, and the Dodgers, and we all know how rare this is.

I wasn’t home for the clincher. I was at the game in Los Angeles. After the final out, I was outside Dodger Stadium high-fiving people I’d never met and will never see again. I saw Yount jerseys, Braun jerseys, Morgan jerseys, Ben Sheets jerseys. Even a Norichika Aoki jersey. In Los Angeles. For a franchise that’s never won a World Series, fans find each other.

It was the first postseason game I’d ever been to; I was both elated to be there and sad I couldn’t watch it with him. So I texted him from the Dodger Stadium bleachers. He wrote back:

“So glad you got to see it. So sad I am not with you.”

“Here in spirit,” I responded.

I’m grateful to the Brewers for always giving me a reason to reach out to him. I’ll be watching every World Series game with him, hoping he gets to see one before he dies. This time, I’ll be there with him.

Because for us, and for so many Brewers fans, the Brewers are more than just a baseball team.