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By Jon Paul Hoornstra
Contributing Sports Writer
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For a certain brand of baseball purist, the Milwaukee Brewers' dominant postseason has been breathtaking. A team that's never won a World Series is 10-1 this month, and can become the first team ever to win nine straight postseason games by beating the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Don't tell anyone in Milwaukee that the 2026 postseason has been anticlimactic. Brewers fans have been waiting 56 years to plan a championship parade.
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Any astute baseball fan can appreciate the aesthetics of the Brewers' brand of baseball, too. Each win proves that a unique offensive approach — one built on foul balls, walks and opposite-field singles — can win a championship without a star-studded lineup of power hitters.
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In spite of all of this — or, depending on your point of view, because of this — the 2026 MLB postseason might be the least thrilling in a generation, if not ever.
The Brewers came from behind to win two games against the San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series, and all four games against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Championship Series. No one who watched each Brewers comeback was surprised to see them erase a 4-0 first-inning deficit to win Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday.
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The outcome of Monday's 10-1 victory at Tropicana Field was arguably more surprising: it was the first game the Brewers had won by more than four runs since the postseason began. The fifth inning, in which the Brewers scored a record eight runs with two outs, made for the least suspenseful finish to a game since September.
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A World Series sweep would captivate only Brewers fans. Even if the Tampa Bay Rays steal a game or two, the 2026 postseason will be the first in 40 years in which the higher-seeded team has won every series.
More news: Brewers All-Star Who Hasn’t Played Since July Makes World Series Roster
Meanwhile, the discourse among casual fans around whether the Brewers and Rays are "analytically driven" or "old school" has been insufferable, dividing even retired players around a false choice.
Once the Brewers' dominance stopped becoming a surprise, it became the polar opposite: inevitable and predictable. That's rare. It's also boring in a way that has nothing to do with the usual 21st-century narratives: market size, payroll disparities, roster recognizability, or "Moneyball."
It's impossible to compare today's postseason, which consists of 12 teams and four discrete rounds, to the pre-1969 format in which the winner of the American and National leagues advanced directly to the World Series.
Both the 102-win Cincinnati Reds and 108-win Baltimore Orioles swept their respective League Championship Series in 1970. In the World Series, the Orioles beat the Reds in five games. On a per-series basis, we might be witnessing the least interesting postseason since.
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