Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know around baseball, brought to you by David Adler. Lucky us -- we get at least one more World Series game ... and it's a Miz game. Let's get into it.
The Rays have lived to fight another day. The Brewers had to wheel the champagne back to the wine cellar.
But if you're Milwaukee, you'll take this any day of the week: Your best guy -- THE best guy -- with the ball in his hands with the chance to win you the World Series.
It's time for Jacob Misiorowski to show what a Cy Young pitcher is made of.
Maybe you wanted to see the Miz come out of the bullpen to try to close out Game 4. Not Pat Murphy. The Brewers skipper wanted to have his ace for this moment right here. (We do admit, though, Closer Miz would've been pretty cool.)
So Misiorowski hasn't been racking up the K's in the playoffs like he did in the regular season … Throw that out the window. Our prediction: Misiorowski's fastball is going to be buzzing in Game 5.
This is the most important start of his life. He's going to empty the tank -- and no one has a gas tank like the Miz. Misiorowski has already set the postseason velocity record (104.8 mph) and the World Series velocity record (103.5 mph) for the pitch-tracking era, which goes back to 2008.
We wouldn't be surprised if he one-ups his own Fall Classic mark tonight … maybe even with a radar gun reading like the one on the giant Misiorowski Pokémon card that showed up to The Trop yesterday.
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Plus, the Miz is pitching in the pristine conditions of the bio-dome that is The Trop -- which can juice up a fastball even more. Remember how, in the Division Series, the Yankees chose to have Gerrit Cole pitch on the road at Tropicana Field instead of at home at Yankee Stadium? That was because Cole's explosive fastball has extra life there. And guess whose fastball is even more explosive than Cole's?
Four-seamers had more "rising" movement at Tropicana Field than any other Major League stadium this season. That's still true in the playoffs. Misiorowski's never actually pitched there, so we don't know exactly what will happen in Game 5, but even against the superb contact-hitting Rays, maybe tonight's the night he finds some of his whiffs.
But one thing we do know is: The Brewers are heading into this potential World Series clincher with a big pitching advantage over the Rays -- who will need to find a way to get nine innings out of some combination of Drew Rasmussen on three days' rest and their heavily taxed bullpen.
We wouldn't dare write off Tampa Bay after last night's awesome rally, though. The World Series isn't over yet. Can the Rays channel their inner 2004 Red Sox and pull off their own historic comeback?
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CAMINERO'S OK AFTER INJURY SCARE |
The Rays must've been holding their breath when Junior Caminero pulled up hobbling while running the bases during their 12th-inning comeback last night, and then was lifted for a pinch-runner.
Tampa Bay is already trying to become the first team in history to come back from down 3-0 to win a World Series. Doing that without your best hitter would be all but impossible.
But the report is: Caminero's OK. It's a left foot injury, but the superstar slugger is expected to be right back in the lineup in Game 5. This is the World Series, after all.
As manager Kevin Cash said after Game 4: "He’ll play tomorrow on one leg; I’ll make sure of it."
See the latest info on Caminero's status here >>
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EVERYTHING TO KNOW FOR GAME 5 |
The Brewers have their second chance to win their first World Series. The Rays can force the series back to Milwaukee. Here's everything you need to know for Game 5.
Brewers at Rays (Brewers lead series 3-1)
8 p.m. ET/7 CT on FOX/FOX Deportes/FOX One
The World Series so far:
The Rays narrowly avoided a sweep with their thrilling walk-off win in Game 4. But they still face an uphill battle. No team that's trailed 3-0 in a World Series has ever made it to Game 6. Unless this Rays team is different, the Brewers will be celebrating their first title tonight.
Tonight's pitching matchup: Jacob Misiorowski (Brewers) vs. Drew Rasmussen (Rays)
The game plan for the Brewers is simple: ride their ace as far as he'll take them. Meanwhile, the Rays had to use seven pitchers in Game 4 to keep their season alive. At least they also have their ace going in Game 5, but their pitching plan will be complicated, to say the least.
Key storyline: How do the Brewers respond to their first loss in three weeks?
Before Game 4, the Brewers hadn't lost since Oct. 6 -- that was Game 3 of the NLDS against the Padres. They bounced back from that one just fine and closed out the series the next day. Well, here's some more adversity. Milwaukee was three outs away from its first World Series championship. Now the Rays have a little mojo back.
See the other big questions for Game 5 here >>
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THE BEST FACTS & FIGURES FROM GAME 4 |
Game 4 was a Fall Classic instant classic. As always, Sarah Langs has you covered with all the coolest facts and figures. Here are five of the best ones from the Rays' win:
1) The Rays are just the fifth team to force a Game 5 in the World Series when down 3-0, joining the 2024 Yankees, 1970 Reds, 1937 Giants and 1910 Cubs. (As we said above, none of those other four teams forced a Game 6.)
2) Tampa Bay pulled off the first walk-off win by a team facing elimination in the World Series since the 2011 Cardinals in Game 6 -- the famous David Freese Game. That game happened on the same date as the Rays' Game 4 win: Oct. 27.
3) We've gone another year without a World Series sweep. The last one was in 2012 (Giants over Tigers). The current streak of 14 World Series with no sweeps is the longest in history.
4) Brewers 22-year-old rookie Cooper Pratt had the game of his life, notching four hits and what looked like the World Series-winning home run until Milwaukee blew the lead. Pratt's homer was the first by a rookie in extra innings in the Fall Classic. He's also the first rookie with four hits in a potential World Series clincher.
5) Ace reliever Aaron Ashby turned in yet another scoreless multi-inning appearance for the Brewers, and he's now up to 18 scoreless innings pitched this postseason. That's a new record for the most consecutive scoreless innings by a reliever in a single postseason, passing Andrew Miller's 16 for Cleveland in 2016.
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KEEP VOTING FOR WORLD SERIES MVP |
Don't forget to keep voting for the winner of the 2026 Willie Mays World Series MVP Award.
Fans can vote for World Series MVP on the night of any potential clinch game, beginning in the sixth inning.
Cast your vote here.
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