The American League Championship Series is tied at two games apiece heading into Sunday evening’s game five. After the Tampa Bay Rays offense scuffled against the Cleveland Guardians’ pitching staff, they finally broke through in game four thanks to Yandy Diaz, Jonathan Aranda and Richie Palacios.
Not exactly the most famous names in Major League Baseball, sure, but an example of the Rays’ depth and ability to create tough matchups for opposing pitchers up and down the lineup. Game five will pair two of the top ten pitchers in baseball in 2026, by FanGraphs WAR, Drew Rasmussen and Parker Messick. Again, not the most well-known names, sure, but based on performance, those two pitchers outperformed highly paid, big-name starters like Zack Wheeler, Framber Valdez, Kevin Gausman or Max Fried.
Given the inherent volatility and randomness of postseason baseball, trying to draw permanent or predictive conclusions from small sample size outcomes is ultimately pointless. But there is one clear pattern that’s been obvious for years and become even more apparent in 2026: there are no underdogs in the playoffs. So why is the best team in baseball still acting like one?
WANT TO KNOW HOW TO WIN IN OCTOBER? THE 2026 MILWAUKEE BREWERS ARE PROVIDING THE BLUEPRINT
On the other side of the tournament bracket, the Milwaukee Brewers swept the very expensive Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS. The Brewers bullpen, behind Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill, among others, was virtually unhittable. Well, not necessarily unhittable, but impossible to score runs against. Those pitchers allowed just two runs in 15.2 innings of relief in the NLCS, both from Uribe. In 13 innings from Ashby, Hall, Romero and Megill, not one runner who reached base scored. Not one. League-wide, the average left on base rate is roughly 75%. For Milwaukee’s bullpen, outside one outing from Uribe, it was 100%.
Offensively, it was more of the same. League average for batting average on balls put in play is around .300. Here’s the Milwaukee BABIP from the LCS:
Hilariously, Garrett Mitchell had a .000 BABIP because his only two hits were series-changing home runs off left-handed starting pitchers, despite having just two homers off lefties in his entire career. Milwaukee’s starting pitchers, too, allowed just three earned runs, despite woeful strikeout-walk percentages of 0%, 10% and 10.5%.
Much of that comes down to, again, the randomness that’s part of small sample sizes. Weird things happen in three or four games throughout the regular season all the time, without anyone noticing or caring. But with the spotlight on, outcomes become part of some mystical, usually made-up approach or perceived grittiness. The Brewers this postseason have been credited by baseball analysts for their supposed plan to put the ball in play. Make contact, see what happens, instead of just selling out for home runs and striking out instead.
What actually happened? Milwaukee outhomered the Dodgers 7-1 and had the highest “three true outcomes,” or strikeouts-walks-home runs, rate of any team in postseason history. Whatever the Brewers’ plan actually was, the reality is that their approach was exactly the one that analysts, former players paid handsomely to give their “expert” opinions and fans claim doesn’t work in October. Clearly, it works.
Regardless, while the series might have had fluky components, between Milwaukee’s fortunate luck on balls in play, runners in scoring position performance and pitching outcomes, the ultimate series result was anything but. The Brewers were once again the best team in baseball in 2026, just as they were in 2025. They had the best run differential in baseball, at +214. For reference, they were more than 170 runs better, over one run per game, better, than the very expensive San Diego Padres team they beat in the division series round.
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They’ve won more games than anyone in baseball since the start of the 2025 season. They were the best team in the league when it comes to outscoring their opponents over the course of the 2026 season. Before the NLCS, 13 of 15 ESPN writers picked the Brewers to beat the Dodgers. So why do they keep acting like nobody believes in them?
In 2025, Brewers manager Pat Murphy played the underdog card before that year’s NLCS, acting as though his opponent had not heard of the team they were facing.
“I’m sure that most Dodger players can’t name eight guys on our roster,” Murphy told reporters. “No offense to them, they shouldn’t have to know the names, but these are some guys that hopefully they know their names by the time it’s over. You never know.”
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As insufferable and absurd as that was, Murphy continued in the middle of the 2026 season, acting like his team’s biggest division rival had also not heard of his players who were currently in first place.
“We know how these series go, you know, you erase it and just keep going,” Murphy said about the Chicago Cubs. “It’s not necessarily a game where they’re ever going to be intimidated by guys, they don’t even know most of our guys’ names, so they’re never going to be intimidated by us, but we’re not looking for that.”
Yes, of course, nobody knows the players on the team in first place in the division. You’d think that after winning 103 games, performing as the consensus best team in baseball, and sweeping the NLCS, Murphy would drop his shtick, but he couldn’t even wait a few minutes before trotting it out yet again in the game four postgame celebrations.
“They got a bunch of hall of famers,” Murphy said about the Dodgers. “We got a bunch of gamers. And the gamers won this week.”
Ah. Sure.
Of course the Dodgers have an exceptional amount of talent, including Hall of Famers like Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts. The Brewers have an exceptional amount of talent too, and Murphy’s routine of pretending like his team is a bunch of humble farmers who were playing stickball out back a few days ago is absurd and offensive. Though apparently diminishing his own roster is part of the team’s motivational playbook.
Jacob Misiorowski is 24-years-old, and a near-lock to win the NL Cy Young Award. He’s so overwhelming that he was added to the 2025 NL All-Star team after just a handful of appearances in the big leagues. Obviously, Misiorowski is very early in his career, but who’s to say he won’t be a Hall of Famer later on? He’s certainly on track after a year and a half. Misiorowski’s salary is artificially limited by MLB’s rules that punish young players, but were he available on the open market, he’d be making $50-60 million this season.
Jackson Chourio is only 22 and just set the MLB record for most home runs in a postseason career before turning 23. If that’s not the start of a potential Hall of Fame career, what is? Chourio signed an $82 million contract with Milwaukee already that would have been significantly higher were it not buying out years of cheap team control.
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Christian Yelich was the 2018 NL MVP, the same season Betts won his lone MVP award. He’s a three-time Silver Slugger Award winner, three-time All-Star and two-time batting champion. If he doesn’t make the Hall of Fame, he’ll certainly come up just short.
Brice Turang was a first round draft pick who won a Platinum Glove for his defense in 2024. Garrett Mitchell is another former first round pick out of UCLA. Total nobody. Logan Henderson was a top-100 prospect entering the season. Jake Bauers has been awful for most of his career, but graduated in 2018 as a top-50 prospect.
William Contreras has been so good in his five years as a starter that he already ranks No. 96 in career WAR among all catchers in baseball history. Should he keep up this pace for 10 more seasons, he’d amass 60 career WAR, putting him eighth all time at his position, ahead of surefire Hall of Famers like Buster Posey and Yadier Molina.
Milwaukee won the series not because they have “gamers,” but because they have an immensely talented roster full of star-caliber players who are underpaid relative to their true value. That’s not a criticism, it’s a testament to their scouting, player development and front office. Like most playoff series, the only actual secret is having a pretty good team and hoping you get hot, and/or lucky, at the right time. That’s what happened here. Pretending like they’re hapless underdogs when, again, they are the best team in baseball, is ridiculous. Yes, the Dodgers have higher paid players. But money doesn’t equal quality, particularly as players’ age, which is what happens when organizations become reliant on free agents.
Murphy was so proud of his rehearsed line that he repeated it once again in the clubhouse celebrations. But here’s the question: with the AL sending Cleveland or Tampa to the World Series, who spend even less on players and have fewer recognizable big names, how can he keep up the act? Can the Brewers keep pretending to be underdogs against the Guardians’ No. 30 ranked payroll? Or will they be forced to finally admit that they just have a good team?
Seeing the social media reaction to Murphy’s absurdist comments, the answer to that is, of course, no because underdog narratives, no matter how fake, are still immensely popular.