Is it spring training yet? No — the pennants are being decided, and spring must wait its turn.

THE MORNING HORSEHIDE HERALD

"Every Score Set Down, No Deed Unsung"

~ Being a Faithful Daily Chronicle of the National Pastime ~

Volume I · No. 111 · Tuesday, the Twenty-Seventh of October, Two Thousand and Twenty-Six

Reporting 1 contest from the day prior.

The Game of the Day

SEVEN HITS IN SUCCESSION, EIGHT RUNS AFTER TWO WERE DOWN — BREWERS 10, RAYS 1, AND MILWAUKEE STANDS ONE WIN FROM THE FIRST CHAMPIONSHIP IN ITS HISTORY

Gasser Honors the Family Name With Six Spotless Innings on a Single Hit; the Fifth Inning Does Two Things No World's Series Inning Ever Did; Chourio's Four Knocks Are the Youngest Man's Since 1946; and Woodruff, Silent Since the Fourth of July, Throws the Final Pitch Before 40,388

The new roof at Tropicana Field, whose restoration this paper saluted only yesterday, proved weatherproof Monday night but not Milwaukee-proof. The third game of the World's Series ended 10-1, the Series stands three games to none, and the visiting clubhouse now sits one victory from the first championship the Milwaukee franchise has ever possessed. The early innings gave no hint of the avalanche. Robert Gasser — whose father's forty-year-old draft story ran in these columns yesterday morning — honored the patrimony with six innings of one-hit, scoreless pitching, walking one and striking out three, while his mates built a modest lead in the third: Christian Yelich lining a single to left to score Jackson Chourio, Jake Bauers coming across on William Contreras' knock to right, the catcher thrown out stretching for second on Victor Mesa Jr.'s throw. Two runs after four innings, and a tidy evening in prospect.

Then came the fifth, and the record book required two new pages. Twelve Milwaukee men batted; eight of them hit safely, seven in unbroken succession — a thing no club had done in any World's Series game — and every one of the eight runs scored after two were out, a sum no Series inning had ever yielded from that position.3 The inning turned on Yelich's legs and a camera: ruled forced at second on a grounder, he was reprieved on Milwaukee's challenge, and the procession resumed.3 Brice Turang singled home two, Garrett Mitchell singled home another, the rookie Cooper Pratt doubled home two more, Sal Frelick doubled, David Hamilton singled, and Chourio capped the carnage with a double of his own — 10-0 before the Gulf Coast club had managed a third hit. Freddy Peralta, whose homecoming form this paper had carried as Tampa Bay's best remaining argument, was charged with five runs in 4 2/3 innings, and Cam Booser faced four men without retiring one.

Chourio's evening deserves its own ledger line: 4-for-5 with a stolen base, and at 22 years and 229 days the youngest man to collect four hits in a World's Series game since Joe Garagiola in 1946 — one short of the single-game record held by Paul Molitor, of the 1982 Brewers, and Albert Pujols.4 Through three games the leadoff man is batting .571, with eight hits and three stolen bases.4

The coda belonged to an older arm. Brandon Woodruff, whose twice-repaired shoulder had not thrown a competitive pitch since July 4 — a vigil this paper has kept since the roster was set — walked to the mound for the ninth, allowed a run on Cedric Mullins' swinging bunt and Yandy Díaz's double, and recorded the final out of a 10-1 night.5 The win ran Milwaukee's streak to eight postseason victories in succession, tying the longest any club has strung together within a single October; of the 43 clubs that ever led a best-of-seven series three games to none, 42 finished the work.3 The fourth game goes tonight at eight o'clock Eastern, under the same roof.

News Around the League

THE BRINK DESK: TWO-AND-FORTY OF THREE-AND-FORTY CLUBS UP THREE GAMES TO NONE HAVE FINISHED THE BUSINESS — TONIGHT JAX TAKES THE BALL FOR TAMPA BAY, MILWAUKEE NAMES NO MAN AT ALL, AND HISTORY OFFERS THE RAYS EXACTLY ONE ROPE

The assignment this paper anticipated Monday has come to pass: Kevin Cash, having held Griffin Jax out of the third game, hands his right-hander the ball tonight with the season in the balance. The form is genuine — a 1.88 earned-run average across 24 innings over his last six outings — and this will be only his third appearance of the postseason, so the arm is fresh for whatever length the evening demands.6

Milwaukee, for its part, has named nobody. Woodruff had been the presumptive man for the fourth game before his ninth-inning turn Monday, and the club's remaining options are the right-hander Dustin May, the left-handers Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan, or a reliever sent out to open.6 A club up three games to none can afford improvisation; a club down three games to none cannot afford anything else. The one rope history offers Tampa Bay is the 2004 Red Sox, the only club ever to climb out of that hole in postseason play — and Milwaukee has its own page in prospect, for no club has swept both the pennant round and the World's Series since the former lengthened to seven games in 1985.3 Eight o'clock Eastern, the Tropicana roof, the FOX wire.

THE CLEMENTE DESK: BEFORE THE THIRD GAME THE COMMISSIONER HANDED LINDOR THE GAME'S HIGHEST OFF-FIELD HONOR — THE FIFTH SON OF PUERTO RICO TO RECEIVE IT

The evening's one ceremony preceded its demolition. On the field at Tropicana Field before Monday's game, the commissioner Rob Manfred presented Francisco Lindor, shortstop of the New York Mets, with the league's Roberto Clemente Award for 2026 — the honor conferred each year upon the player whose philanthropy best carries the great Pittsburgh outfielder's example — with Lindor's wife, parents and family in attendance.7 He is the fifth Puerto Rican player so honored, following Edgar Martínez, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltrán and Yadier Molina.7

The citation is earned in brick and tuition as much as in sentiment. Since 2020 Lindor has given more than a million dollars toward Lindor Hall, a middle-school building at his old academy at Montverde, Florida, with a scholarship fund attached for students who could not otherwise attend; after the hurricanes Maria and Fiona he funded relief and restored athletic grounds in his native Caguas; and his season-long program of mentorship in Queens attends to the minds of young athletes as carefully as their bodies.7 The Herald, which spends its October columns on men who hit baseballs, is glad once a year to salute a man for what he builds.

THE INSTRUCTION DESK: PHILADELPHIA ENGAGES A NEW PROFESSOR OF HITTING — FATSE, LATELY OF BOSTON, TO SUCCEED KEVIN LONG, BY A REPORT THE CLUB HAS YET TO CONFIRM

The Phillies have engaged Peter Fatse as their new hitting coach, by the account of a source — the hiring first reported by The Athletic, and not yet confirmed by the club itself — to succeed Kevin Long after an offense that ranked eighth in baseball in runs in 2025 slipped to nineteenth this season.8

Fatse arrives with a resume of both ascent and abrupt ending: assistant hitting coach in Boston for two seasons, then the Red Sox's lead hitting man from December 2021 until April of this past season, when he was let go in the same stroke that claimed the manager Alex Cora. Before Boston he coordinated the Twins' minor-league hitting, and before any of it the Brewers drafted him in the 24th round of 2009 — a playing career of two minor-league seasons that turned him early to the teaching trade.8

THE VACANCY DESK: SEATTLE'S SEARCH NARROWS TO AN OLD HAND AND A NEW ONE — ESPADA AND KANZLER SIT FOR THIRD INTERVIEWS WHILE THE REPORTED FRONTRUNNER WITHDRAWS FOR FAMILY'S SAKE

The Mariners, a month without a manager since parting with Dan Wilson at the season's end, have brought two candidates to the ballpark in person: Joe Espada, 51, three seasons the manager in Houston and six a bench coach there before that, and Jason Kanzler, 36, the Cubs' director of player development, who has run that farm system for three seasons and has never managed at any level. For both men it is a third round of interviews, the earlier two conducted by wire.9

The field has thinned around them. Rocco Baldelli, reported the frontrunner, withdrew for family reasons — his people are settled in Florida, and Seattle is a long way from there — a departure first reported by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and confirmed to MLB.com by a source. Walker McKinven of the White Sox was interviewed and is reported out of the running; the president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto has set no timetable, and has said previous managing experience is preferred but not required — a standard his last two hires, Scott Servais and Wilson himself, did not meet either.9

THE FACULTY DESK: MARIANO DUNCAN, FIVE YEARS THE BENCH COACH AT BINGHAMTON, ASCENDS TO THE METROPOLITAN STAFF — A NEWLY MADE POST, BY THE ACCOUNT OF A PERSON FAMILIAR WITH THE PLANS

The Mets are promoting Mariano Duncan to a newly created Major League coaching post, by the account of a person familiar with the plans — the club has not yet confirmed it — in which he will work with the position players across several departments and throw batting practice besides. Duncan has spent eight years in the organization, the last five as bench coach at Double-A Binghamton, where the likes of Francisco Alvarez and Brett Baty passed through his schoolroom on their way to Queens; a temporary big-league assignment after the Double-A season has now been made permanent.10

The new professor's own credentials were earned in October. As a player Duncan won the World's Series with the 1990 Reds and again with the 1996 Yankees, and took a pennant besides with the 1993 Phillies — a man who knows the view from both ends of a champagne celebration, now charged with teaching the route.10

Three games to none, and Milwaukee has now won eight postseason games in succession — a streak that has tied the longest ever assembled within a single October, with sole possession of the record on offer tonight.3 The particulars ahead are verified and as follows: the fourth game this evening at eight o'clock Eastern under the Tropicana roof, the fifth there Wednesday should the question survive the night, and the Series returning to Milwaukee for Friday the 30th and — at the uttermost — Saturday the 31st, All Hallows' Eve.2 The Rays must now win four games in succession from a club that has won its last eight, a feat accomplished exactly once in the history of postseason play; the Brewers need win only one, and have four chances to do it. Forty-four years ago Milwaukee came to a World's Series and left empty-handed. Tonight the city could put the matter right by bedtime. Until the morrow's dispatch, keep your scorecards near and your enthusiasms nearer.

~ THE HERALD ~

The Herald Acknowledges Its Debts

  1. MLB Box Scores — Tuesday, October 27, 2026 — Boxscore
  2. Baseball-Reference.com — Upcoming Schedule and Upcoming Dates — Baseball-Reference
  3. Adam McCalvy, Brewers win World Series Game 3 behind historic inning — MLB.com
  4. Anthony DiComo, Jackson Chourio making historic impact on World Series at age 22 — MLB.com
  5. Adam McCalvy, Brandon Woodruff gets final out in 2026 World Series Game 3 — MLB.com
  6. Anthony Castrovince, Adam Berry and Adam McCalvy, When is Brewers-Rays World Series Game 4? Date, Time and Lineups — MLB.com
  7. Francisco Lindor wins 2026 Roberto Clemente Award — MLB.com
  8. Paul Casella, Phillies hire Peter Fatse as new hitting coach — MLB.com
  9. Daniel Kramer, Mariners interviewing Joe Espada, Jason Kanzler for manager — MLB.com
  10. Anthony DiComo, Mariano Duncan promoted by Mets (source) — MLB.com