MILWAUKEE - The 122nd World Series has one thing locked in before the first pitch: somebody is about to celebrate a first championship. The Brewers have never gone all the way, coming as close as one victory away in 1982.
The Rays are next on that list, having fallen two wins short in 2020. Beyond that, this series looks built for tension, not fireworks.
That’s the shape of the matchup: tight games, thin margins and a lot of pressure on the little things. The postseason batting average sits at .214, teams that score a fourth run are 24-3, and eight games have already been won without a home run. In a postseason that has leaned that way all month, the Brewers and Rays fit the script better than anybody.
Both clubs have built their offense around the stuff modern baseball spent years trying to push aside. They ranked among the top three regular-season teams in batting average, opposite-field hitting, ground ball hitting, singles, bunt hits and stolen base attempts. So yes, the steal, the bunt and the hit-and-run are back in the World Series, and they matter here.
On the mound, Tampa Bay’s plan has been one of the strangest things this postseason has seen. Ninety percent of its postseason pitches have been fastballs and changeups.
Ninety percent. The Rays have used the changeup 26.3% of the time, up from 25.5% in the regular season, and 59% of those changeups have been out of the strike zone.
Hitters have gone 4-for-34 against those out-of-zone changeups.
That gives Milwaukee something concrete to attack, because the Brewers have done the best job in the majors of not chasing. Their chase percentage of 26.9% led baseball in the regular season. If any lineup looks built to handle the Rays’ changeup-heavy approach, it’s this one.
The Brewers also bring heat in a way no postseason team ever has. Their average fastball velocity is 97.6 mph, the hardest throwing team in postseason history. Tampa Bay didn’t punish that kind of speed during the regular season, hitting .217 against 97+ mph pitching, and that number has dropped to .105 this postseason, going 4-for-38.
That brings the spotlight to Milwaukee’s ace, who was the best pitcher in baseball this year. The underlying numbers on his fastball have dipped this postseason - induced vertical break, spin rate and whiff rate all down - but the velocity has held. He’s been getting foul balls more than extra-base damage, and he has also gone up against two of the eight best hitting teams against 97+ mph pitching in the Padres and Dodgers.
He also arrives at Game 1 rested. Since May 14, the Brewers are 20-3 with Miz on the mound, including 11-0 since August 3.
They are 20-6 when he starts at home. Milwaukee believes his fastball plays even better in that park, and there’s another number hanging over this one: the fastest recorded pitch in World Series history was Aroldis Chapman’s 103.2-mph heater for the Cubs in Game 2 of the 2016 World Series.
Misiorowski has already thrown seven pitches faster than that this postseason.
Milwaukee’s biggest bat may be the player most likely to tilt the series, too. Chourio has delivered some huge hits this postseason, and he has also smoked seven outs at 100 mph or higher, tied with Chase DeLauter for the most such scalded outs. He fits the moment with his quiet lower half, fast hands and cool demeanor.
Still, the strike-zone discipline has to improve. Chourio is chasing 45.9% of pitches out of the zone this postseason, up from 33.8% in the regular season. Tampa Bay knows it, and it will try to get him fishing.
The Brewers, meanwhile, would like to keep Caminero from hurting them. They’d prefer to let someone else in the Rays lineup beat them.
That’s easier said than done. Caminero has the best plate coverage in the sport, and he has hit 12 homers on pitches out of the zone, the most by any hitter over the past nine seasons.
Those home runs have come from five different pitch types.
When Milwaukee has to go right at him, manager Pat Murphy is expected to use right-handed reliever Abner Uribe. The two have seen each other once before: a six-pitch walk on March 31, when Caminero did not swing.
It’s a power-on-power confrontation either way. Against power sinkers at 97+ mph, Caminero is hitting .345 and slugging .552.
The running game should matter, too. Both teams use the stolen base as a real weapon.
The Brewers are 40-10 this season when they steal two bases, and the Rays are 36-12 in those games. Tampa Bay has been especially aggressive early in at-bats, going 11-for-11 on stolen base attempts this postseason, with every attempt coming on the first, second or third pitch.
Only four times did the Rays steal when the batter was ahead in the count.
Milwaukee’s battery has been cleaner, and Contreras has elevated his game on both sides. He has been blocking and throwing better than he did in the regular season. That matters in a series where one extra base can change everything.
The Rays’ biggest challenge may be left-handed breaking stuff. The Dodgers were the sixth-best hitting team against left-handed breaking pitches in the regular season, but in the NLCS they were shut down by Milwaukee’s lefties Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, JoJo Romero, Robert Gasser and Shane Drohan.
Los Angeles went 0-for-22 against 91 breaking pitches from that group. If Tampa Bay wants to get to the Milwaukee bullpen, which has allowed one earned run in eight postseason games, it has to solve that look.
And then there’s the venue. Home teams are 12-17 in the World Series since 2021, which is odd on its face, but this matchup may be different.
The Brewers are 59-26 at home and 20-4 in their last 24 there. Visiting starters at American Family Field are 0-11 in their last 19 starts, and no starter has beaten Milwaukee in that park since Seattle’s Logan Gilbert on Aug.
- The Rays are 57-27 at home, where they hit more homers and slug better.
One more wrinkle: this is the first World Series with ball/strike challenges, and both teams have numbers that could make that interesting. Tampa Bay has seen more erroneous strike calls against its hitters than anyone in the postseason, 23 in all, but the Rays have not challenged a pitch on offense.
Defensively, they are 9-for-13. The Brewers are much more active, averaging 3.38 challenges per game, and they are 4-for-7 on hitters’ challenges and 12-for-20 on defensive challenges, all by Contreras.
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