The Rays clawed their way to a 12th-inning win over the Brewers on Tuesday night - or, more accurately, early Wednesday morning - to force a Game 5. And while Tampa Bay got a jolt from that comeback, Milwaukee still did damage in the power department, leaving Game 4 with a pair of home runs.
For Wednesday’s Game 5, the home run board points to one hitter from each side.
Yandy Diaz is the Tampa Bay name to target again. He was my home run pick yesterday too, and there’s still enough reason to stay on him here.
Diaz is 1 for 3 with a homer against Jacob Misiorowski in the regular season, and he also turned in two solid looks at him in Game 1. He opened that game with a flyout to right field, then later lined out to second base.
The Rays leadoff man also showed a clear split this season at Tropicana Field, where he hit 16 home runs compared with just six on the road. That’s enough to give him another swing as the long-ball play tonight.
On the Milwaukee side, I’m moving away from William Contreras, though not because the bat has gone cold. I still like Contreras to homer, but Jackson Chourio’s Game 4 is enough to pull me in a different direction for this one.
Chourio finished 2 for 6 in Game 4, and one of those hits was a double that came off at 107.3 miles per hour. He also produced a 106.9 mph exit-velocity groundout and a 105.2 mph lineout, which kept the hard contact theme going even when the ball didn’t leave the yard.
Tampa Bay’s pitching plan hasn’t been set, but that uncertainty doesn’t seem likely to change this pick much.
In Other News...
Taylor Walls Delivered A Defiant Rays Message After That Walk-Off Win
After the Rays pulled out a walk-off win over the Brewers in the World Series, the postgame conversation quickly shifted from the final swing to the bigger picture. MLB insider Ken Rosenthal asked shortstop Taylor Walls whether getting just one victory was meaningful because it showed Tampa Bay could hang with Milwaukee, a line of questioning that underscored how much respect the Brewers have earned in the matchup.
Walls did not love the premise, making it clear he thought the question missed the point of how the Rays view themselves. Tampa Bay has no interest in treating one win like proof of parity, because the belief inside the room is that the series is still there to be won, and the group is determined to keep competing against a Milwaukee club it still recognizes as a formidable opponent. [Read more 🡒]
Rays World Series Exit Leaves One Brutal Question About Their Big 3
The Rays run to the 2026 World Series ended with a familiar kind of frustration, the kind that lingers because Tampa Bay was never far from a breakthrough, yet never quite got the big hit to flip the series. Milwaukee closed things out with a 4-1 win in Game 5, and the Rays spent much of the matchup chasing the Brewers pace after Drew Rasmussen took the ball on short rest against a lineup that kept forcing them into uncomfortable swings.
What makes the exit sting even more is how little production Tampa Bay got from the middle of its order. Yandy Diaz, Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero never found their groove over the series, and the Rays now head into the offseason with one brutal question hanging over the clubs future: when the pressure was highest, where did the offense from its core go? [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Let World Series Chance Slip Away At Worst Possible Time
The Rays were staring at the brink again in Game 5, but instead of heading to the offseason, they kept their season alive with one of those late, stubborn October rallies that can change the tone of an entire series. Tampa Bay chipped away at Milwaukees lead, then turned the game into a marathon and came away with a 12th-inning win that sent the World Series back for Game 6.
For a Brewers club that had the championship within reach, the collapse in the late innings was especially painful because the margin for error had already vanished. The Rays now have a chance to do something no World Series team has ever done, forcing a Game 6 after trailing 3-0 in the series, and Milwaukee will have to recover quickly from a loss that let the door swing back open at exactly the wrong moment. [Read more 🡒]