The Brewers have a chance Monday night to put the World Series in a stranglehold, and the ball is expected to go to left-hander Robert Gasser in Game 3 against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Milwaukee spent Sunday off after opening the series with Jacob Misiorowski in Game 1 and Logan Henderson in Game 2. Now the focus shifts to Gasser, who has already shown he can handle the postseason spotlight for the Brewers.
His previous start came in Game 4 of the National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres, when he threw four innings and allowed one run on three hits with three strikeouts in the clinching game that pushed Milwaukee into the National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Gasser then got the call again in Game 3 of the NLCS, and he delivered another strong outing. He worked five shutout innings against Los Angeles, gave up only three hits and struck out three as Milwaukee stunned the baseball world and moved ahead by three games in that series. The Brewers are hoping for a similar result Monday night.
A victory would give Milwaukee a three-game lead in the World Series, something no team in baseball history has ever erased. A loss, though, would tighten everything up and turn the series into a much different conversation. The Brewers would still be ahead, but only by one game with two more contests looming at Tropicana Field.
So far, Milwaukee has done exactly what it needed to do in the postseason. The Brewers handled the Padres in four games, with their lone playoff defeat coming in the NLDS.
They then kept pressing the Dodgers after building an early edge and swept that series in four games. With a two-game lead already in hand, the Brewers are leaning on the same formula again: keep pushing, keep applying pressure, and let Gasser try to widen the gap.
Through the playoffs, Gasser has posted a 1.00 ERA with a 6-to-2 strikeout-to-walk ratio across nine innings. Milwaukee will need more of that kind of work if it wants to make Monday night another step toward control of the series against Rays starter Freddy Peralta.
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