The Tampa Bay Rays’ season has reached the point where everything seems to run through one arm.
Down 2-0 after the Milwaukee Brewers stormed back from an early four-run hole to win Game 2, 5-4, the Rays head home for Game 3 in what feels like a must-win spot in the 2026 World Series. Tropicana Field has been a safe place for Tampa Bay all year, and now the pressure is on the home team to turn that edge into something bigger before Milwaukee can push the series to the brink.
That task falls to Freddy Peralta, who gets the ball in one of the most interesting starts of the postseason. Peralta spent eight seasons with the Brewers before going to the Mets prior to the season and then landing with the Rays in the Aug. 3 trade deadline deal. He was a major figure in Milwaukee for years and is still extremely popular there, which gives this matchup a little extra bite.
The move to Tampa Bay has already reshaped Peralta’s year. After a rough stretch with the Mets, he worked with the Rays’ pitching staff on mechanical changes and found his delivery again. He made 10 regular-season starts for Tampa Bay and put up a 3.25 ERA, then took home ALCS MVP honors after helping the Rays knock off Cleveland.
The Rays have every reason to believe they can still make this a series. They went 59-27 at Tropicana Field during the regular season and are 4-1 there in the postseason. But the margin for error is gone now, because another Brewers win would leave Milwaukee on the doorstep of its first World Series championship.
Coming back from 2-0 is a tall order, though not an unheard-of one. Sixteen teams have done it in a best-of-seven postseason series, including the 2025 Blue Jays in the ALCS. In the World Series, however, the last club to erase a 2-0 deficit was the 1996 Yankees.
So Peralta is more than just the starter assigned to Game 3. He knows the Brewers, knows plenty of the hitters across from him, and arrives having already recaptured his best stuff at the right moment. If Tampa Bay is going to stop Milwaukee from seizing a commanding 3-0 lead, it needs Peralta to be the one who flips the series.
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Brewers Are One Step From A Sweep Tampa Bay Dreads
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The Rays managed only a lone run in the ninth, a late flinch in a game that had long since tilted Milwaukees way. With the Brewers now carrying a 3-0 series lead, Game 4 suddenly carries the weight of whether this becomes a title-clinching march or the rare playoff detour that gives Tampa Bay life. [Read more 🡒]
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