ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Go ahead and throw whatever pitch you want. Jackson Chourio is ready to strike.
The Brewers’ ridiculously talented lead man was front and center Monday at Tropicana Field as Milwaukee made all kinds of history en route to a 10-1 rout of the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 3 of the World Series. Chourio’s contribution to the Fall Classic record book: Five months shy of his 23rd birthday, he became the youngest player in 80 years to record four hits in a World Series game. Two of them came in a drawn-out fifth inning in which the Brewers scored eight runs, all with two outs – also a World Series record.
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The sudden explosion achieved in a single frame set the stage for a truly remarkable scene: Brandon Woodruff — the longest-tenured Brewer, unfathomably just three months removed from the second shoulder surgery of his career — took the mound in the ninth inning to a raucous ovation from the contingent of Milwaukee fans who made up a significant portion of the sellout crowd of 40,388. Woodruff delivered the memorable finale to another complete Brewers playoff victory.
But as usual, it started with Chourio.
For the third straight game, the 22-year-old led off with a single, sending a 97.5 mph fastball off former teammate Freddy Peralta into center field. Peralta ultimately escaped the first frame unscathed, but he wasn’t so lucky a few rounds later. In their second encounter, the right-hander tried something different, but Chourio was unfazed, burning a first-pitch curveball to left field for a one-out single and coming in to score Milwaukee’s first run of the game on a Christian Yelich bloop base hit. William Contreras then drove in another run to make it 2-0 for the Brewers.
That 2-0 lead looked pretty solid given the way Brewers starter Robert Gasser was pitching. After Yandy Díaz led off the game with a scorching single, Gasser ran through a nervous Rays lineup with minimal trouble. He needed 25 total pitches to get through the second, third and fourth innings without allowing a baserunner. By the end of his night, Gasser had one of the best outings by a rookie in World Series history – six scoreless innings with one hit allowed – although it was largely overshadowed by the unprecedented offensive explosion of the fifth inning.
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And who launched this historic gathering? Take a wild guess.
In the fifth, Chourio came to the plate with one out as Peralta prepared to navigate the Brewers’ relentless batting order for the third time. His heater and breaking ball had already been hit hard by Chourio; maybe Peralta’s terrific offspeed pitch would do the trick?
No. After coaxing a whiff on a four-seam fastball and missing a sweeper outside, Peralta tried to get a weak changeup. But Chourio struck again, scoring a single up the middle.
“Some of the best hands I’ve ever seen in the batter’s box,” designated hitter Andrew Vaughn said of Chourio. “Maybe one of the best right-handed swings I’ve ever seen. I mean, I compare him to Pujols, Miggy – he’s special, and he’s so young. He’s 22, he’s batting like he does, he’s leading the World Series like it’s nobody’s business.”
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What could have been a harmless hit with one out turned out to be the opening salvo of an offensive inning for the ages. After Jake Bauers flew out to left for the second out, the next seven consecutive Brewers batters reached base, chasing Peralta from the game along the way. It was 9-0 Milwaukee by the time Chourio returned to the batter’s box for his second at-bat of the inning — this time against reliever Cole Sulser — and he wanted in on the RBI parade.
The veteran right-hander took Chourio to a 2-2 count with cutters and four-seamers before attempting a sweeper. Chourio followed the horizontal move to the outside half and ripped his cannon toward the ball, connecting cleanly for the fourth time of the night on a fourth different pitch. This time, the ball flew into the right-center field gap for a double – Chourio’s first extra base hit of the World Series. Not since 20-year-old St. Louis Cardinals catcher Joe Garagiola in Game 4 in 1946 has a hitter younger than Chourio collected four hits in a World Series game.
“That’s what I’ve witnessed throughout my career,” Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski said. “I’ve watched him forever, it’s like. I think I realized he’s different every time we’ve been in Double-A. He’s special.”
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With at least one more at-bat to come, Chourio had a chance for even more exclusive history. Only two players, regardless of age, have recorded a five-hit game in the World Series. One of them was Albert Pujols’ legendary three-homer performance in Game 3 in 2011, which also included two singles. The other was Paul Molitor, who had five hits in the last World Series Game 3 Milwaukee played before Monday, in 1982. But Chourio’s attempt to join the Hall of Fame duo failed in the seventh, when first base umpire Vic Carapazza ruled he didn’t check his swing on a Garrett Cleavinger slider, capping Chourio’s night with a strikeout to go along with his four hits.
“He’s so talented,” hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach said. “I think people forget how young he is – he could be playing college baseball right now. He works really hard. But he’s just such a good kid. He’s the good kid. He doesn’t worry about getting accolades. We play a pretend game before we prepare for the World Series, and he cheers for his teammates like a little kid, and that’s what makes him so special. He plays so relaxed every day.”
The 10-0 score held almost until the end of the game, until Díaz hit a timeout RBI double against Woodruff with two outs in the ninth. Milwaukee settled for a 10-1 final score and a 3-0 series lead.
On a roster filled with shrewd trade acquisitions, underrated hidden gems, and late breakouts, Chourio is in a league of his own. He received a $1.8 million bonus as one of the top players in his international amateur class when he signed with the Venezuela Brewers as a 16-year-old in 2021, but it didn’t take long for that bonus to look like a bargain.
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The following year, as Chourio progressed through the minors as a teenager, it was clear that Milwaukee had not only landed a good player, but also a potential game-changer. The Brewers’ confidence in Chourio’s transcendent trajectory was evident in their enormous commitment to him, giving the top prospect an eight-year, $82 million extension before he had played in a championship game. He’s been great since then, and he’s still just scratching the surface.
“You hear about him, and it’s like, ah, he’s just a little 18-year-old. I see him on the field in spring training, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’d probably dominate him, whatever,'” Woodruff said of his first impressions of Chourio.
“So I had to face him in the scrimmage match the other day, and I always say a lot of shit to him. Like, ‘You don’t know what it was like before the shoulder, man – you’d belong to me’… knowing in the back of my mind, like, this kid, he’s pretty good. … I got him two goals, and then he picked me.”
That Chourio reappeared as the main character in Game 3 of the World Series shouldn’t come as a shock. After all, he was the one who threw the first big swing of this downright dominant Brewers run to the precipice of the first championship in franchise history.
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Twenty-three days ago, the Brewers were trailing 2-0 in the third inning of Game 1 of the NLDS against the Padres when Chourio smashed a game-tying two-run homer off Robbie Ray that sizzled off his bat at 113.3 mph, the hardest-hit home run of his young career. The next night, Chourio won an epic contest against San Diego closer Mason Miller, belting a single that turned a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 victory. Chourio was quieter in the NLCS against Los Angeles, but still managed to pull off one of the series’ signature swings: an ambush on Blake Snell’s first pitch to start Game 3 at Dodger Stadium with a home run.
For Chourio, the successes came one after the other once the Fall Classic began. Any concerns about the Brewers struggling with rust after a bye week before Game 1 evaporated when Chourio jumped on a first-pitch cutter from Nick Martinez for a leadoff single and came in to score Milwaukee’s first run of the World Series. Facing one of the American League’s best weapons, Drew Rasmussen, in Game 2, Chourio made sure the Brewers responded quickly to the Rays’ early 4-0 lead, scoring a go-ahead run to spark Milwaukee’s latest comeback. In the third game, no comeback was necessary. It was just a barrage of Brewers hitters doing their job, with Chourio once again leading the charge.
“Nobody’s surprised Jack Jack would do that,” manager Pat Murphy said afterward. “He understands what it takes, the discipline it takes. It comes into his own. No one is shocked.”
“He’s just really, really good.”
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