'He likes the moment': Jackson Chourio was made for October

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Jackson Chourio is 22 years old. "A kid," as Milwaukee Brewers hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach put it late Monday night. "He could be playing college baseball right now." Instead, Game 3 of the World Series -- a 10-1 thrashing of the Tampa Bay Rays that saw Chourio collect a quarter of the Brewers' 16 hits -- was Chourio's 23rd career postseason game, all in these past three years. Through them, he has built a catalogue of experience in his sport's most pressure-packed environments, steeling himself to the point that he has mastered them. "It's about maintaining a calmness to myself and thinking only about a positive result," Chourio said in Spanish. "I know people expect a lot out of me. I expect a lot out of myself too. But I have to remain calm and always think positive." On a night when the Brewers put themselves up 3-0 and on the precipice of the first championship in the franchise's 57-year history, Chourio became the first 22-year-old in 80 years to accumulate four hits in a World Series game. He has collected eight of them in the first three games of this series, during which the Brewers' offense has put its relentlessness on display -- by blitzing Nick Martinez in the first inning of Game 1, by overcoming a four-run deficit in Game 2 and by stringing together eight two-out runs in the fifth inning of Game 3. Chourio started Monday's rally with a base hit up the middle and finished it with a double into the right-center-field gap, because of course he did. "He's turning into a superstar right in front of our eyes," Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold said. Arnold was the general manager under David Stearns when the Brewers signed Chourio out of Venezuela as a 16-year-old in 2021. The efficient swing and the lightning-fast hands were immediately obvious. Over time, his ability to unleash those traits on baseball's grandest stage became apparent too, to the point where, as Brewers right fielder Sal Frelick said, these types of performances are now expected of him. "He's got that slow heartbeat," Brewers captain Christian Yelich said of Chourio. "He likes the moment." A multihit performance in Chourio's postseason debut in 2024 and a .389/.421/.667 slash line in his first National League Division Series in 2025 hav given way to an entire month of brilliance in 2026. It began subtly, with the poise to calmly catch the Ty France fly ball that clanked off a roof cable in Game 1 of the NLDS, and continued with the epic walk-off single against star closer Mason Miller 24 hours later. Over the next few weeks, Néstor Corredor, the Brewers field coordinator who also coached Chourio in the Venezuelan winter league and in this year's World Baseball Classic, noticed him getting too anxious, especially in a rematch against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Corredor has since seen Chourio dial back in -- working counts, shortening his swing, slowly dismantling the Rays with an assortment of low line drives.e The success of those around him has helped. "He's understanding that this is a complete team and he doesn't have to be the hero," Corredor said. "He's the leader of the lineup, but there's a calmness to him, knowing that there's a team behind him to support him." Over the past three years, the league's OPS is 39 points higher in the regular season than it is in the postseason. For Chourio, it's the opposite. His regular-season OPS from 2024 to 2026 -- during which he became the first player with three consecutive 20-homer, 20-steal seasons before the age of 23 -- is .799. In the playoffs, it's .882. "It's super impressive how he manages that scenario," Brewers backup catcher Gary Sánchez said in Spanish. "To me, he likes these moments more than the regular season." Chourio adamantly believes he was born to perform in this environment. Perhaps his name has something to do with it. Chourio's father, Jackson Sr., was a diehard L.A. Lakers fan during their dominant run in the early 2000s. Chourio's younger brother, Jaison, an outfielder in the Cleveland Guardians system, has the middle name "Oneel" in honor of Shaquille O'Neal. Chourio's middle name is "Bryan," a nod to the late Kobe Bryant. Chourio isn't fluent in English, but he said he read some of Bryant's autobiography, "The Mamba Mentality," and has tried to adopt what he can from the Lakers' playoff legend. There's a key difference, though: Bryant famously shot airballs in his first exposure to the playoffs. He had to work himself into becoming the five-time champion who built a legacy off thriving in the biggest moments. Chourio got there really early. "I know how hard I've worked for this," he said. "But the fact it's all working out the best way possible is truly gratifying."