The Milwaukee Brewers are World Series champions. They beat the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 in Game 5 on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field to win the Series four games to one, and it’s the first title in the franchise’s history.

Think about how long that wait was. This franchise started as the Seattle Pilots in 1969, moved to Milwaukee a year later, and its only other World Series trip ended with a Game 7 loss to the Cardinals in 1982. Fifty-eight seasons. Tonight, Brewers fans took over the Trop.

How it was decided

Jacob Misiorowski won it on the mound. He threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings, allowed two hits, walked one and struck out two on 86 pitches before a right calf cramp took him out of the game. Then the bullpen finished it: JoJo Romero and Abner Uribe got two outs each, and Trevor Megill pitched the last two innings. Tampa Bay’s only run came on Chandler Simpson’s RBI double in the ninth, and Richie Palacios grounded out to second to end it.

The offense did it the small-ball way. Rookie Cooper Pratt singled in the first run in the second inning, David Hamilton’s single in the fifth made it 2-0 (that run held up as the winner), and William Contreras doubled home Christian Yelich and Pratt added a sacrifice fly in the sixth for a 4-0 lead.

Pratt went 2-for-3 with two RBI. Per ESPN, he set a World Series rookie record with six straight hits, and Jackson Chourio’s 11 hits set a record for a five-game Series.

My take: give me this team over a payroll monster any October. Milwaukee won 103 games with a payroll nobody was scared of, lost a crusher in 12 innings in Game 4, and didn’t blink. That’s a champion. Somebody in Wisconsin is going to need a nap tomorrow.

Box score: ESPN.

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Jeremy Durham is a sports columnist for TriStar Daily and the founder of Five and a Fade.