MILWAUKEE -- Jake Bauers almost started crying.
Aaron Ashby called it his favorite swing of the year. Brice Turang couldn’t stop screaming.
And Sal Frelick? He just wanted to get back to the dugout so he could give manager Pat Murphy a fist bump.
That’s what happens when a guy who hit four home runs all season launches one to dead center field in the World Series.
Frelick’s game-tying solo shot in the sixth inning of Saturday night’s 5-4 victory over the Rays didn’t just erase the last of Milwaukee’s four-run deficit. It sent American Family Field into a frenzy, sparked another improbable comeback and helped put the Brewers two victories away from their first World Series championship.
And it came from perhaps the unlikeliest source imaginable.
“I’ve never seen him hit a dead-center homer in BP,” Bauers said. “So to see him do it in a World Series game, I couldn’t be happier for him.”
Frelick hadn’t homered since July 11. He finished the regular season with a .614 OPS, and Saturday’s blast was just the fourth of his career against a left-handed pitcher, including the postseason.
The most recent one? Opening Day of the 2026 season.
But with Milwaukee trailing 4-3 in the sixth, Frelick stepped into the box against Rays left-hander Ian Seymour and began what would become a nine-pitch battle.
Seymour kept challenging him with fastballs. Frelick kept fouling them away.
Until the ninth pitch.
A 92.9 mph four-seamer caught too much of the plate, and Frelick sent it soaring toward straightaway center field. The baseball cleared the fence, Bernie Brewer took his first slide of the World Series and the crowd erupted.
Frelick, who rarely celebrates home runs because he rarely hits them, pumped his fist rounding the bases.
“I don’t hit a lot of home runs, especially to center,” Frelick said. “So just happy that one got out.”
He didn’t even know it was gone off the bat.
“Murph jokes with me. He says I can’t hit the ball off the ground to center because it’ll be an out the rest of my life,” Frelick said. “So I was just pumped to try to get back to the dugout so I could give him a big fist bump.”
Murphy has spent much of Frelick’s career playfully reminding him of his limitations. Before Saturday’s game, though, the manager offered a different assessment.
He called Frelick the ultimate competitor, comparing his relentless confidence to Dustin Pedroia, whom Murphy coached at Arizona State.
“He has this edge about him that he believes in himself,” Murphy said. “Dustin was full of belief, full of a swagger and an edge that, when he went out and played, it was like, ‘I’m going to get it done.’”
That belief has never been about overwhelming physical tools.
“I wasn’t always the most gifted athlete,” Frelick said. “I just always felt like that was where I was able to get my edge, just turn everything into a competition.”
His teammates see it every day.
“That guy means so much to us in here,” Bauers said. “To see him have an at-bat like that and then hit the homer, it was an emotional moment for sure.”
Ashby, who recorded the final five outs to preserve the victory, went even further.
“That was my favorite swing of the year. It’s not even close,” Ashby said. “This team wouldn’t be what this team is without that guy. He’s the glue guy. He’s the guy that keeps this whole thing together.”
The home run was only part of Frelick’s night. He had four hard-hit balls and helped Milwaukee wear down a Tampa Bay pitching staff that threw 184 pitches.
It’s an approach that has defined the Brewers’ postseason.
After falling behind 4-0 in the first inning, Milwaukee scored twice immediately, added another run in the fourth and tied it on Frelick’s homer. Cooper Pratt delivered the go-ahead hit in the seventh.
It was Milwaukee’s second comeback victory from a deficit of at least four runs this postseason, joining its NLCS-clinching win over the Dodgers. Only four other teams in postseason history had accomplished that feat in a single year.
“It’s next guy up,” Frelick said. “Our offense is built to kind of chip away and wear on pitchers, which I think can be good when you’re trying to come back.”
Even after his biggest swing of the season, Frelick’s attention quickly returned to the game.
“It’s great, sort of this blackout feeling,” he said of rounding the bases. “Then it kind of ends, right? Like, still in the game.”
He knew better than to celebrate too early. Milwaukee still had three innings to play, and the score was merely tied.
But inside the Brewers’ dugout, the moment meant something more.
“I almost started crying in the dugout,” Bauers said. “That’s such an awesome moment for Sal.”
And for a player whose value has never been fully captured by his numbers, there might not have been a more fitting way to deliver it.
One swing. Dead center. World Series.
The kind of moment nobody expected from Sal Frelick.
Except, perhaps, everyone who knows him.