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14-year SF Giants World Series streak stays alive after Rays defeat Brewers in Game 4

Put those brooms away.
ByNick San Miguel
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Tampa Bay Rays second baseman Ben Williamson (15) celebrates with teammates including Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Jorge Mateo (9) after he hit the game winning walk off RBI single off of Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Shane Drohan (55) during the twelfth inning during Game 4 of the Brewers 4-3 World Series loss at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. on Oct 27, 2026.
Tampa Bay Rays second baseman Ben Williamson (15) celebrates with teammates including Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Jorge Mateo (9) after he hit the game winning walk off RBI single off of Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Shane Drohan (55) during the twelfth inning during Game 4 of the Brewers 4-3 World Series loss at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. on Oct 27, 2026. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

The Milwaukee Brewers had the Tampa Bay Rays on the ropes going into Game 4 of the 2026 World Series. Up 3-0 after a dominant win in Game 3, it seemed like Milwaukee might just steamroll the Rays again to win its first World Series in franchise history.

Game 4 was incredibly tight and went to extra innings, but the Rays pulled it out in the bottom of the 12th which means the SF Giants are still the last team to sweep the World Series which they did back in 2012 against the Detroit Tigers.

That just goes to show how hard it is to sweep a World Series. Both teams are playing good baseball if they’ve made it to the Fall Classic so unless the talent disparity is really wide usually a team is going to get at least one win.

It’s not like the Brewers have completely dominated the Rays, either. Game 1 and Game 2 were both incredibly close as Milwaukee won each game by just one run. Game 3 was close until an unlikely offensive explosion with two outs in the fifth inning.

Only 19 World Series have ended in a 4-0 sweep. It’s only happened four times since 2000, so it’s not exactly a regular occurrence, but this is officially the longest gap between sweeps since 1914. There were two 13-year gaps from 1914 to 1927 and then from 1976 to 1989, but Giants fans know that an earthquake played a very pivotal role in helping the Oakland A’s sweep in 1989.

The gap is only going to grow as there will not be a chance for another sweep until 2027 so it will have been at least 15 years since a team is able to match what the Giants did to the Tigers in 2012.

Giants shocked everyone by sweeping the Tigers in 2012 World Series

The great irony of that is that basically no one gave the Giants a chance to win the 2012 World Series. Pretty much every analyst of note was picking the Tigers given the fact they had feared sluggers like Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder and a strong pitching staff led by Justin Verlander.

Yet, Pablo Sandoval hit three homers in Game 1, Barry Zito out-dueled Verlander, and the Giants just simply outplayed Detroit en route to a sweep. To paraphrase Mike Krukow, the Giants shocked the baseball world and they did it in four games.

That was a really special year and it might be my favorite of those three titles from the 2010s just because of how they had to come back in both the NLDS and NLCS, Hunter Pence made all those wild speeches, Zito came up huge, and Marco Scutaro became a legend. They were all magical but that one was really a treat.

Surely some team will sweep the World Series again at some point, but at least the Giants can still claim they were the last team to do it for one more year. 

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