Jackson Chourio Ties Babe Ruth's 98-Year-Old World Series Record With His 10th Hit in Four Games

Jackson Chourio tied Babe Ruth on Tuesday night, and the way it happened tells you everything about this World Series. With Milwaukee leading 3-2 in the top of the 12th inning of Game 4, Chourio lined a two-out double off Rays reliever Ian Seymour. It was his 10th hit of the series, and it matched a record Ruth set in 1928 for the most hits through the first four games of a Fall Classic. MLB posted the comparison itself within the hour, pairing the 22-year-old Brewer with the most famous name in the sport’s history. The Brewers still lost the game, 4-3, when Tampa Bay rallied in the bottom of the 12th. Records do not care about the final score, and this one will outlive the night either way.

What exactly did Chourio tie?

A record that had belonged to one man for 98 years. Ruth collected 10 hits in the first four games of the 1928 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, when he was 33 and already the sport’s defining figure. Chourio has now done the same at 22, in his first World Series, against a Rays team that came into the series as favourites. The number is not an age record or a rate stat dressed up as history. It is the plain count of hits through four games, and for nearly a century nobody had reached 10. That is why MLB’s own post carried the number so simply: 10 hits, Ruth 1928, Chourio now.

How did the record hit unfold?

It came at the exact moment Milwaukee needed a run and got something stranger instead: history inside a rally that would not hold. The Brewers led 3-2 in the 12th when Chourio stepped in with two outs against Seymour and doubled, his second hit of the night. He had already made multiple hits in each of the first three games, including a four-hit night in Game 3’s 10-1 win, so the record was not a fluke of one hot evening. It was the fourth straight game in which he reached base more than once, built one at-bat at a time, and the double was the one that put his name next to Ruth’s. Tampa Bay then did what it had to do, scoring twice in the bottom of the inning to win 4-3 and force Game 5. The sweep died in the same inning the record was born, which is the kind of symmetry this series keeps producing, as the disputed calls and the bullpen argument from the same Game 4 already showed.

How good has Chourio’s series actually been?

Better than the record alone suggests, because the record counts only hits. Through four games Chourio is 10-for-20, hitting .500, with two RBIs, two doubles, three stolen bases and four runs scored, Sports Illustrated reports. He has been Milwaukee’s spark at the top of the order in every game, not just the ones that made the highlight reels, and his regular season said this was coming: a .291 average with 25 home runs, 75 RBIs and 23 stolen bases in 127 games, despite missing the first weeks of the season through injury. This is not Chourio’s first final-strike moment this October either. He delivered a walk-off winner against Mason Miller earlier in the postseason, and the Brewers’ run to the World Series has repeatedly gone through him, even when the captain was benched for a game against a left-handed ace and the lineup around him kept changing.

Can he break the single-series record?

He can, and Game 5 is the first chance. The record for the most hits in a single World Series is 13, held by Marty Barrett, Lou Brock and Bobby Richardson, Sports Illustrated notes, so Chourio needs four more hits to own it outright and three to share it. He has at least one more game, on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field, and two more if Tampa Bay wins Game 5 and sends the series back to Milwaukee. The arithmetic is simple, but the context is what makes it compelling: he would be chasing a record held by three men while trying to close out Milwaukee’s first championship since the franchise last reached the World Series in 1982. The Brewers’ October began with a Game 1 win over San Diego in the NLDS, and it could end with their youngest star holding a record Ruth could not keep to himself.

What does this mean for Chourio and Milwaukee?

It means the Brewers have their star, and they have him for a long time. Chourio is under contract through 2031, with club options for 2032 and 2033, so the player who just tied Ruth at 22 should still be a Brewer when he is pushing 30. That is the part Milwaukee fans will remember long after Game 4’s 12th inning fades: not just the double, but the fact that the player who hit it is theirs for the next seven seasons. Game 5, with Jacob Misiorowski starting against Drew Rasmussen, is now two stories at once. Milwaukee can win its first title, and Chourio can take one more step toward a record that has stood since before any of the men who hold it were born into the version of the sport he now leads. The Rays, for their part, have already shown they will not hand him either prize quietly.