The champagne came out for the fourth straight September in Milwaukee, and this time the Brewers didn't just repeat — they rewrote the record book. Jacob Misiorowski fired five scoreless innings and Milwaukee beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-1 on Tuesday night, then huddled around a clubhouse TV about 50 minutes later as the Chicago Cubs fell to the Atlanta Braves, triggering the celebration: the Brewers are NL Central champions for the fourth season in a row.

No team had ever done that before. Not since the division was carved out of the old NL East and West in 1994 has any club won four straight NL Central crowns, according to ESPN's rundown of the clinch. Milwaukee enters the celebration with a 94-57 record, the best mark in the sport, a perch it has held since mid-August.

Misiorowski leads the way again

The 24-year-old right-hander, who has emerged as one of the sport's most electric arms in his first full season, struck out seven Pirates and allowed just two hits over five innings to set the stage. Asked how a roster that entered the year picked to finish mid-pack keeps finding October, Misiorowski kept it simple, per MLB.com's account of the clinching win: "It's just the boys grinding, them doing their jobs and putting a run across the board. So that's all I can ask for."

Manager Pat Murphy, fresh off dumping a cooler over his own head, strapped on a pair of comically oversized goggles for the on-field celebration and put the achievement in context for a franchise that has leaned on player development and bullpen depth rather than a superstar-stacked payroll.

"We have 11 games to go, a lot of things to tighten up, but it's just really gratifying to see the guys know what they've achieved and know that it's never been done four years in a row. I'm just happy for them," Murphy said, according to CBS Sports.

The win capped a night Milwaukee didn't fully control on its own. The Brewers had to finish their business against Pittsburgh and then wait on Chicago, which coughed up a 6-3 decision to Atlanta to hand the Central over. It's a fitting footnote for a Brewers club that has spent the entire season sharing the load rather than depending on one signature star, and general manager Matt Arnold has pointed to that organizational depth as the reason Milwaukee keeps outperforming its payroll rank year after year.

With the division locked up and roughly two weeks left in the regular season, the focus in Milwaukee shifts to seeding and health. Owning baseball's best record puts the Brewers in position for a first-round bye and home-field advantage deep into October, a very different proposition than the wild-card scrambles that have defined some of their earlier playoff trips. Whether this is finally the year Milwaukee's remarkable regular-season consistency translates into a deep postseason run is the question that now hangs over the Brew Crew as the calendar turns toward October.