ACCUMULATE THOSE SMALL ADVANTAGES.

There is no booth review in baseball.  Managers have two challenges of calls on the field, which they retain as long as their challenges are correct.  In the recently completed World Series, challenges of calls at second base figured in the outcome of three games.

In the first game, at Milwaukee, the Rays, trailing 3-1, had the bases loaded with one out in the ninth.  Brewer closer Trevor Megill served a ground ball that resulted in two outs and the after-game festivities beginning.  Tampa manager Kevin Cash challenged the play.  Runner out at first, that was unambiguous; runner safe at second, for as long as I've been following baseball I've heard broadcasters carrying on about automatic double plays called when the infielder receiving the ball hasn't properly touched second base, and so it transpired after New York looked at all the video; runner at third and a run in.  The next batter struck out and the Fox Sports stage crew could haul the broadcast set onto the field.  First game to the Crew, 3-2.

A reversal at second might have contributed to the outcome of the fourth game, Tampa's only win.  Going into the ninth inning, the game was tied at two runs.  With two outs, Cooper Pratt singled and Brewer manager Pat Murphy lifted David Hamilton, who hit the game-tying home run in his previous bat, for a pinch hitter.

With pinch hitter Andrew Vaughn at the plate, Cooper Pratt stole second as the go-ahead run in a 2-2 game with the Brewers trying to secure a 4-0 series sweep. Pratt appeared to slide just under the tag of Richie Palacios, and umpire Tripp Gibson called Pratt safe on a close play.

But Kevin Cash wasn't satisfied with the call. The Rays' manager challenged.

That substitution, pinch hitter for Hamilton, serves to give the opposing pitcher two things to think about, a base-runner with a team notorious for stealing bases, and a hitter with a different tendency card to keep in mind.  Joey Ortiz, who is an excellent infielder, enters the game as a defensive replacement in the Rays' half of the ninth.

Reverse the call at second, though, and should the game go to extra innings Joey Ortiz leads off the tenth.  He still might get something good to hit as pitchers might want to work around Jackson Chourio.  It all might have been moot anyway, as next time up Cooper Pratt hit a home run to put the Brewers ahead.  "The Rays responded with two runs in the bottom of the 12th, and Ben Williamson's walk-off single secured a 4-3 Tampa Bay victory."  That rally began when Joey Ortiz committed a throwing error on a lead-off ground ball and Pat Murphy brought in lefthanded pitcher Shane Drohan to face left-handed batters.  Tampa's victory was Pyrrhic.

The Rays used every premium arm available to them, as well as presumed Game 5 starter Nick Martinez, who threw 33 pitches and then wasn't available Wednesday. The Brewers, meanwhile, had Misiorowski waiting with a relatively rested bullpen.

In Game 5, the Rays started ace Drew Rasmussen on short rest, being aggressive with a pitcher they tried to get extra rest as much as possible during the regular season. Rasmussen wound up throwing four innings but surrendered the first run on a single by Cooper Pratt, who set a World Series rookie record with six straight hits across Games 4 and 5.

Because the Brewers held serve at home, winning the World Series under its current scheduling format involves winning a three game road series.  Sure, sweeping the Series looks good in the record books, but being in a position to take the rubber game is a good place to be, and somehow the Brewers racked up those 103 regular season wins without any of the 2025 long winning streaks. Take a series and go on to the next one.  Their longest winning streak was the seven games from San Diego through Los Angeles and into Tampa.

The Brewers put themselves in a position to win the series, and the Series, with a fifth inning that also — perhaps that is the theme for this World Series — involved a call at second base reversed on appeal.

Up a pair in the top of the fifth, the Brewers put runners on first and second against Tampa Bay starter Freddy Peralta. Milwaukee catcher William Contreras, the best hitter in these playoffs, ripped a two-hopper toward third baseman Junior Caminero. In a spinning motion, Tampa's talented talisman snagged the pearl and flicked it to second baseman Ben Williamson as a full-bore Christian Yelich slid into the bag. Umpire Dan Bellino punched his fist. The Fox graphic evaporated from the screen. Multiple members of Tampa Bay's between-innings hype squad jogged onto the outfield track for some type of giveaway.

Yelich, though, clung to the bag with his left hand as he motioned adamantly toward Belino with his right.

To get to the call being overturned, which it was, the small advantages came into play.

Yelich, with his mad dash to second, was the under-the-radar hero of this evening.

With the right-handed Contreras at the plate and a runner on second, Rays first baseman Ryan Vilade was shaded toward second, opting not to hold Yelich on. That allowed the Brewers' captain to take a much larger-than-average lead off first base. By the time Contreras swung, Yelich was already about 30 feet from the bag, his right foot in the air ready to break in either direction. As the ball bounced toward Caminero, Yelich landed and broke hard for second.

"You have to understand where you're at in space," Yelich explained postgame. "You're lengthening your primary [lead] in case there's a ball in the hole or some sort of play happens where you could potentially beat the throw."

It was a sublime bit of baserunning, the kind that takes years of purposeful, monotonous practice to get good at. There's also an element of internal pre-pitch preparation: "If X happens, I do Y." Yelich executed that process perfectly. Caminero, who had ample time to get the slow-footed Contreras at first, did not.

"The beauty of it is that you have guys like Yeli that demand it from the group," first-base coach Spencer Allen told Yahoo Sports about the team's attention to detail.

Jason Lane, Milwaukee's offense and strategy coordinator, explained to Yahoo Sports that he tells players to approach a secondary lead at first base and two outs with the same intent and intensity they would bring to a "contact play." That's the inside-baseball term for when a runner at third, with the infield drawn in, plans to race home on contact — no matter where the ball's hit.

"When you remind guys of that and explain it to them like that — and these guys are hunting all those little things that we preach about right turns — it can become something that happens in a playoff game," he explained.

Under normal circumstances, taking the short throw to get the force at second might be the correct play, particularly if umpires are granting those automatic forces I alluded to previously.

That inning continued in a way not to Tampa Bay's favor.

Yelich, by beating the throw to second, turned a dead frame into the inning of a lifetime. The floodgates soon burst, sweeping away Tampa's next pitcher, Cam Booser. On a 2-2 count, he served a mid-zone fastball to second baseman Brice Turang, who scorched one off shortstop Taylor Walls' glove and into the outfield. Milwaukee's lead was doubled to 4-0.

What followed was not quite a July 13 Seattle Pilots game at Minnesota in which Rod Carew came back from the Army and got a hit and Jim Bouton claimed the Twins pulled an usher out of the stands and he got a hit, but it was quite enough to go up 3-0 in the Series.

ALL 8 FIFTH-INNING RUNS IN ONE VIDEO https://t.co/Umvvau3c5V

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) October 27, 2026

In Milwaukee, the thinking isn't get some runners on and hit a home run, it's get some runners on and get some more runners on.

Their next five batters all found grass, with each consequential hit eliciting louder and louder roars from the armada of traveling Wisconsinites. In total, the Brewers strung together seven consecutive two-out hits to plate eight two-out runs, a World Series record. It was an all-time heater and a fitting performance from a pridefully selfless Brewers offense that has prioritized passing the baton over hitting big flies all season long.

"Nobody wants to be the hero," hitting coach Dan Vogelbach boasted.

That's how to accumulate small advantages.

The Brewers don't merely capitalize on mistakes. They make opponents fear committing them.

"With them, they are executing really well, and that's what the results say," Tampa outfielder Chandler Simpson said.

But the execution is only just a sliver of the torment.

Because what does it really mean for William Contreras to challenge a pitch called a ball to Junior Caminero, and once again be right, in the bottom of the fifth inning, other than to administer another dose of novocaine to the Rays' already numbing pain?

Or for Sal Frelick to lay out for a diving grab in the eighth inning with a 10-run lead, other than to preserve what was then a staff-wide one-hitter?

This is what got them here.

The Brewers want to bury their opposition. Yield no mercy. Leave no memory of what success might feel like, just in case their opponents start believing in it again.

Or, as their manager, Pat Murphy, puts it: "We want to step on your throat."

Now it's time to savor the victory party.