World Series 2026: Jackson Chourio, still just 22, continues his incredible postseason run with 4-hit game in Brewers' Game 3 victory

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Go ahead, throw whatever pitch you want. Jackson Chourio is ready to hit it.

The ludicrously talented Brewers leadoff man was front and center on 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 books: Still five months away from 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 neverending fifth inning in which the Brewers scored eight runs, all with two outs — also a World Series record.

The sudden blowout 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 — taking the mound in the ninth inning to a raucous ovation from the contingent of Milwaukee supporters who made up a sizable portion of the sellout crowd of 40,388. Woodruff delivered the memorable finale to yet another comprehensive Brewers postseason victory.

For the third game in a row, the 22-year-old led off with a single, hammering a 97.5-mph fastball from former teammate Freddy Peralta into center field. Peralta eventually escaped the first frame unscathed, but he was not so fortunate a couple of innings later. In their second showdown, the right-hander tried something different, but Chourio was unbothered, scalding a first-pitch curveball into left field for a one-out single and coming around 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 Brewers.

That 2-0 lead felt fairly sturdy given how Brewers starter Robert Gasser was throwing. After Yandy Díaz led off the game with a scorching single, Gasser breezed through an antsy Rays lineup with minimal trouble. He needed 25 total pitches to cruise through the second, third and fourth innings without allowing a baserunner. By the end of his night, Gasser had delivered one of the best outings by a rookie in World Series history — six scoreless innings with one hit allowed — even if it was largely outshadowed by the unprecedented offensive outburst in the fifth inning.

And who started that historic rally? Take a wild guess.

In the fifth, Chourio arrived at the plate with one out as Peralta prepared to navigate the relentless Brewers batting order for a third time. His heater and breaking ball had already been hit hard by Chourio; perhaps Peralta's terrific offspeed pitch would do the trick?

Nope. After coaxing a whiff on a four-seam fastball and misfiring a sweeper way outside, Peralta tried to land a low changeup. But Chourio struck again, lacing 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 it to Pujols, Miggy — he's special, and he's so young. He's 22 years old, going out there having at-bats like he does, leading off in the World Series like it's nobody's business."

What could've been a harmless, one-out base hit turned out to be the opening salvo of an offensive inning for the ages. After Jake Bauers flied 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 stepped back into 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 got Chourio to a 2-2 count with cutters and four-seamers before trying a sweeper. Chourio tracked the horizontal movement to the outer half and ripped his barrel to the ball, connecting cleanly for the fourth time of the night on a fourth different pitch. This time, the ball soared 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 had a hitter younger than Chourio collected four hits in a World Series game.

"That's what I've been witnessing my whole career," Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski said. "I've watched him forever, it feels like. I think I realized he was different whenever we were in Double-A. … It wasn't just me. Everyone in our organization was like, 'Holy cow, this dude's different.' He's special."

With at least one more at-bat to come, Chourio had a shot at even more exclusive history. Only two players of any age have recorded a five-hit game in the World Series. One of those was Albert Pujols' legendary three-homer performance in Game 3 in 2011 , which also included a pair of singles. The other was Paul Molitor, who notched five hits in the last World Series Game 3 Milwaukee had played before Monday, back in 1982. But Chourio's bid to join the Hall of Fame duo fell short in the seventh, when first-base umpire Vic Carapazza ruled that he didn't check his swing on a Garrett Cleavinger slider, concluding Chourio's night with a strikeout to go with his four knocks.

"He's just 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 so hard. But he's just such a good kid. He's the right kid. He doesn't care about getting the accolades. We're playing a sim game before getting ready for the World Series, and he's cheering like a little kid for his teammates, and that's what makes him so special. He just plays so relaxed every day."

The 10-0 score held nearly to the end of the game, until Díaz roped a garbage-time RBI double off Woodruff with two outs in the ninth. Milwaukee happily settled for a 10-1 final score and a 3-0 series lead.

On a roster filled with savvy trade acquisitions, underrated hidden gems and late-blooming breakouts, Chourio occupies a category unto himself. He received a $1.8 million bonus as one of top players in his international amateur class when he signed with the Brewers out of Venezuela as a 16-year-old in 2021, yet it didn't take long for that bonus to look like a bargain.

By the next year, when Chourio was rocketing through the minors as a teenager, it was clear Milwaukee had landed not just 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, inking the top prospect to an eight-year, $82 million extension before he had played a major-league game. Since then, he has been terrific, and he's still only 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 backfield in spring training, I'm like, 'Yeah, I'd probably dominate him, whatever,'" Woodruff said of his first impressions of Chourio.

"So I got to face him in the scrimmage game the other day, and I always talk a lot of crap to him. Like, 'You don't know what it was like before the shoulder thing, dude — I would own you" ... knowing in the back of my mind, like, this kid, he's pretty good. … I got him two strikes, and then he singled off of me."

That Chourio reemerged as a main character in Game 3 of the World Series should come as no shock. After all, he was the one who delivered the first big swing of this downright dominant Brewers run to the precipice of the first championship in franchise history.

Twenty-three days ago, the Brewers were down 2-0 in the third inning of NLDS Game 1 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 encounter with San Diego super-closer Mason Miller, roping a walk-off 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 deliver one of the series' signature swings: a first-pitch ambush of Blake Snell to lead off Game 3 at Dodger Stadium with a home run.

For Chourio, the hits kept coming once the Fall Classic began. Any concern about the Brewers dealing with rust after a week off before Game 1 evaporated when Chourio jumped on a first-pitch cutter from Nick Martinez for a leadoff single and came around to score Milwaukee's first run of the World Series. Facing one of the best arms in the American League in Drew Rasmussen in Game 2, Chourio made sure the Brewers responded quickly to the Rays' early 4-0 lead, notching a leadoff knock to spark the latest Milwaukee comeback . In Game 3, no comeback was necessary. It was just a barrage of Brewers batters doing their thing, with Chourio once again leading the charge.

"Nobody's surprised that Jack Jack's doing this," manager Pat Murphy said afterward. "He's understanding what it takes, the discipline that it takes. He's coming into his own. Nobody's shocked."