Sal Frelick had plenty of reasons to have a difficult season. The Milwaukee Brewers right fielder battled a torn labrum in July and finished the regular season with a .230 batting average. But when his team needed him, one swing in the sixth inning of Game 2 changed the story. His game-tying homer helped set the tone for a celebration that was just as memorable. And at Friday’s championship parade, Frelick made sure he had a moment of his own.
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“It’s one of the best days of my life, seriously. And I’m gonna have a beer for every single person here; I’m having 100,000 beers! Let’s go!” Frelick declared at Friday’s parade, via Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
The Brewers had been waiting 57 years for their championship win, and the team’s only other World Series appearance ended in a seven-game loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1982. A toast for each fan was fitting in a city desperate for October baseball. Frelick also tied that promise to the clubhouse.
“We hang out with each other off the field, 24/7. These are my best friends right here,” Frelick continued at the parade. “And we won this trophy for you guys.”
The Brewers won 103 games, posted an 11-2 record in October, came back to win seven times, and swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS. Frelick’s own season showed how much resilience fueled that run.
While his regular season numbers of four home runs and 40 RBIs in 111 games were modest at best, one swing in Game 2 was all it took for Frelick to turn the narrative around.
In the sixth inning of Game 2, Frelick launched a solo shot off the Tampa Bay Rays to tie it at 4-4, and the Brewers won 5-4. Only four homers cleared the fence all series, which magnified the blast.
He backed it up in the field. A diving catch in right during Game 3 protected a lead while he nursed that shoulder, and he finished 5-for-19 with a double, a homer, two RBIs, three runs and a stolen base.
The Brewers then closed it out when closer Trevor Megill got Rays infielder Richie Palacios to ground to second for the final out of the 4-1 clincher, and the fans behind the dugout erupted.
From here, the celebration went by pretty quickly. The next night, the Brewers brought the Commissioner’s Trophy to Thursday Night Football, where Frelick, who played high school football, did the Lambeau Leap into the Green Bay Packers crowd.
Right-handed pitcher Jacob Misiorowski admitted he barely slept during the parade, while William Contreras heard MVP chants. Misiorowski had earned that fatigue, going 2-0 with a 0.84 ERA in the series.
Rookie Cooper Pratt, 22, set a Series rookie record with six straight hits, and outfielder Jackson Chourio’s 11 hits tied for second-most in the first five games, behind Pepper Martin’s 12. Their contact work carried a lineup that rarely relied on the long ball.
Manager Pat Murphy’s club scored a major league-low 32.1 percent of its runs on homers, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, and the Rays ranked second-lowest at 34.4 percent. That profile defined the Brewers’ October baseball brand.
Murphy’s roster also made a point about spending. Owners are pushing for a salary cap, arguing that small markets cannot win regularly, yet the Brewers ranked 19th in payroll in the first Series since 1991 among bottom-half payrolls.
That makes this celebration worth savoring. A management lockout is likely to start Dec. 2 and could threaten the 2027 season, so the Brewers have every reason to enjoy Frelick’s 100,000-beer pledge now.