“Cruelty is the reciprocal of withdrawal, surrender, abandonment. It is an aggressive, persistent, attack-mode attitude. It defines the warrior. The implacable performer gives himself intently, totally and consistently to the struggle.” – the late Harvey Dorfman, legendary mental skills coach, friend and mentor of Brewer manager Pat Murphy
MILWAUKEE — When the Milwaukee Brewers headed toward their dugout after a disastrous first inning in Saturday’s World Series Game 2, they did so calmly, unconcernedly, completely oblivious to the score.
Advertisement
The Tampa Bay Rays recently started Logan Henderson, tagging him for four runs, two on a long ball by catcher Liam Hicks. For the visitors, it was a welcome resurgence following a dreary display of lethargy in their Game 1 loss. The high-fives and atta-boys echoed on the diamond side as the agriers gathered their belongings and slowly returned to their positions.
In the dugout of Milwaukee, nine undaunted souls prepared for the climb. Out of nowhere, in manager Pat Murphy’s field of vision, there was a crack of terror.
“I didn’t say anything. He was just standing there doing what I was doing,” he said. “I eat these goals all day, so my spirit is good if I go out and argue with the umpire. I don’t talk a lot, but I heard these guys talking to each other, and they’re dead set on getting back in the game, and this first inning did a lot.”
“We came in with an offensive plan. We’re not going to dictate the scoreboard,” NLCS MVP and first baseman Jake Bauers said. “Focus makes sure that it doesn’t matter.”
If you ring them in the mouth, these Milwaukee Brewers will snap their necks, swallow a few teeth and, quite frankly, pull right back up. There are bulletproof zombies, cockroaches in baseball pants. They are also now 9-1 in October. Amazingly, he won seven of them at the bottom of the field, twice running four times.
Advertisement
For Murphy’s club, early-stage failures are minor inconveniences. The Rays are learning this now as the Padres and Dodgers nod from their couches in solidarity. Each return of Milwaukee’s consequence only reinforces the confidence of the Brewery unit, like a forging iron of fire. The sun will rise, the sun will set, and the 2026 Brewers will lead and hold.
Such is the bitterness.
“Everybody really bought into it,” explained reliever DL Hall, who pitched the sixth inning in Milwaukee’s Game 2, 5-4 victory. “We’ve had such crazy games all year. We’ve had a nine-run comeback. So when you put up four, especially in the first? Man, we took nine innings.”
Nine innings were not necessary on Saturday. The brewers immediately attacked; just three minutes passed between the finals from the first top and the first bottom. Leadoff hitter Jackson Chourio hit the second pitch he saw from Tampa Bay starter Drew Rasmussen into right field for a base hit. The American Family camp is about to be brought back to life. The Brewers scored twice on the board with four hits and were on their way.
Advertisement
“Our offense is built to kind of take the chip off and put it on the pitcher, which I think is good when you’re trying to come back. At the same time, if we go up, it’s the same exact approach,” explained outfielder Sal Frelick, whose sixth-inning solo homer tied the game.
A process-based lifestyle backed by positive results is a repeatable recipe for success. This error runs, an improbable homer (Frelick homered just four times in the regular season), and the belief becomes a real thing. Eventually someone (it doesn’t matter who, but in Game 2 it was Brice Turang) will reach base, and someone else (it doesn’t matter who, but in Game 2 Cooper Pratt) will strike them out. It is necessary, according to the law of the universe, that enough blue and yellow cracks touch enough white polygons for the brewery to fail. Add six scoreless hits from the best bullpen on Earth, including Aaron Ashby’s 1 hitless hit, and you have the franchise two points from its first World Series title.
As the series flips to Florida’s Gulf Coast for Game 3 on Monday, it’s hard to see this Milwaukee freight train derailing from the Rays club now playing below its standards. Having ALCS MVP Freddy Peralta on the mound to win the game will inspire some confidence, but the turnaround story feels impossible without a boost from Tampa to an unimpressive heavy unit. Over the final eight innings of Game 2, the Rays failed time and time again to get another run. That stupidity soon turned to frustration. At one point, superstar Junior Caminero could be seen screaming through the dugout in frustration.
Advertisement
He felt like the antithesis of Milwaukee’s serene confidence, his calm ferocity.
The Brewers’ even-keeled tenacity in the face of adversity is a huge part of what makes the NL so special. It helps the collection of elite ballplayers, but as Yogi Berra once said: “Baseball is 90% mental, and the other half is physical.” Quip absolutely suits these Brewers, whose philosophy of resilience begins with Murphy, a man with the word “terrified” painted on his right arm.
To the right of Murphy’s ink is another piece of ink: large black letters that say “200 club.” It’s a mantra he once coined alongside Harvey Dorfman, the famously mentally-driven coach who won two World Series rings while coaching for the 1989 A’s and 1997 Marlins. A friend of Brewer’s president of baseball operations Matt Arnold recently got a similar figure after hearing Murphy tout its significance.
Number arises from monoalphabetic characters; take each letter of a word and assign a value to that letter’s place in the alphabet. For example, A becomes 1, B becomes 2 and so on; Add all the letter values together, and you have one number.
What does 200 represent?
“F***ing cruelty.”
Such are the brewers. It is painted all over them.