“Relentlessness is the reciprocal of giving up, giving in and giving up. It is an aggressive, persistent and attacking attitude. It defines a warrior. The relentless artist gives himself intensely, completely and constantly to the competition.” — the late Harvey Dorfman, legendary mental skills coach, friend and mentor of Brewers manager Pat MurphyMILWAUKEE — As the Milwaukee Brewers returned to their dugout after a disastrous top of the first inning Saturday in Game 2 of the World Series, they did so calmly, unconcerned, completely oblivious to the score. Catcher Liam Hicks. For the visitors, it was a welcome burst after a sleepy offense that was on display in a Game 1 loss. High fives and atta-boys echoed on their side of the diamond as fielders gathered their belongings and ran to their positions. In the Milwaukee dugout, nine undaunted souls prepared for a family climb. Nowhere in manager Pat Murphy’s field of vision was there a hint of panic. “I didn’t say anything. I was just standing there doing what I do,” he said. “I eat these mints all day, so my breath is good if I go out and argue with a referee. I didn’t say much, but I heard these guys talking to each other, and they were totally focused that they could keep climbing in the game, and that first inning did a lot.” “We came up with an offensive plan. The score isn’t going to dictate it,” said National League Championship Series MVP and first baseman Jake Bauers. “The focus is to make sure everyone knows it doesn’t matter.” If you look them in the mouth, these Milwaukee Brewers will break their necks, swallow some teeth, and without a care in the world, swing back. They are bulletproof zombies, cockroaches in baseball pants. They are now 9-1 in October as well. Surprisingly, the Brewers have trailed in eight of those wins, two of them by four runs. For Murphy’s club, early postseason deficits are just minor inconveniences. The Rays are learning this now while the Padres and Dodgers nod in solidarity from their couches. Every major Milwaukee comeback only strengthens the Brewers’ united confidence, like fire forges steel. The sun will rise, the sun will set, and the Brewers of 2026 will take back the lead and keep it. Such is the act of relentlessness. “Everyone’s really sold on that,” explained reliever DL Hall, who pitched a scoreless sixth in Milwaukee’s 5-4 Game 2 victory. “We’ve had crazy games all year. We had a nine-run comeback. So when you hit four, especially in the first? Man, we had nine innings.” On Saturday, nine innings were not necessary. The Brewers counterattacked immediately; Barely three minutes elapsed between the final out of the top of the first and the first runner in the bottom of the first. Leadoff hitter Jackson Chourio hit the second pitch he saw from Tampa Bay starter Drew Rasmussen into right field for a hit. American Family Field came back to life. The Brewers scored twice in the frame with a quartet of singles and were on their way. “Our offense is designed to wear down and wear down pitchers, which I think can be good when you’re trying to come back. At the same time, if we’re up, it’s exactly the same approach,” explained gritty outfielder Sal Frelick, whose solo home run in the sixth inning tied the score. repeatable recipe for success. One run on an error here, an improbable home run there (Frelick hit only four home runs in the regular season), and belief becomes reality. Eventually, someone (it doesn’t matter who, but in Game 2 it was Brice Turang) will get to the base, and someone else (it doesn’t matter who, but in Game 2 it was Cooper Pratt) will push them in. It is inevitable, a law of the universe, that enough blue and yellow studs will touch enough white polygons for a Brewers deficit to become a Brewers advantage. Add six shutouts from the best bullpen on Earth, including another 1 ⅔ clean frames from the immaculate Aaron Ashby, and you have a franchise two wins away from its first World Series title. As the series shifts to the Florida Gulf Coast for Game 3 on Monday, it’s hard to imagine this Milwaukee freight train being derailed by a Rays club currently playing below its own standards. Having American League Championship Series MVP Freddy Peralta on the hill for that must-win contest will inspire some confidence, but a turnaround seems impossible without an awakening of Tampa’s so far unimpressive offensive unit. Over the final eight innings of Game 2, the Rays failed time and time again to get another run. That ineptitude soon turned to frustration. At one point, superstar Junior Caminero could be seen yelling in disgust in the dugout. He felt like the antithesis of Milwaukee’s confident serenity, its placid relentlessness. The Brewers’ even-keeled stubbornness in the face of adversity is a big part of what makes the National League champions so special. Having a collection of elite players also helps, but as Yogi Berra once said, “Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.” That joke absolutely applies to these Brewers, whose philosophy of resilience begins with Murphy, a man with the word “dauntless” tattooed on his right forearm. On Murphy’s right bicep is another piece of ink: big black letters that say “200 club.” It’s a mantra he coined long ago with Harvey Dorfman, the renowned mental skills coach who won two World Series rings as an advisor to the 1989 A’s and 1997 Marlins. A friend of Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold recently got a similar tattoo after hearing Murphy tout its meaning. The number is the result of a monoalphabetic cipher; Take each letter of a word and assign it the value of that letter’s place in the alphabet. For example, A becomes 1, B becomes 2, and so on. Add the values of all the letters and you will get a number. What does 200 represent? “Fucking relentless.” That’s what the Brewers are like. It’s tattooed all over.
