The Milwaukee Brewers against the Tampa Bay Rays. The two No. 1 seeds in the 2026 MLB playoffs. Two franchises that have never won a World Series title.
It’s time for Game 1 of the World Series, featuring a 103-win Brewers squad that just took down the two-time defending champs and a red-hot Rays club that proved itself the class of the American League -- and we’re here to get you ready for all the action.
With the first pitch scheduled for 8 p.m. ET at American Family Field, it’s time to break down the players and matchups that matter most for both teams. We also asked our ESPN MLB experts to make their picks for who will win the Series, how many games it will take and who will be the MVP of this Fall Classic.
Note: Bradford Doolittle’s World Series probabilities come from a formula that uses power ratings as the basis for 10,000 simulations to determine the most likely outcomes.
World Series winner probabilities
Milwaukee Brewers
Chance of winning: 59.1%
What’s on the line for the Brewers: The first World Series title in franchise history -- after 57 seasons in Milwaukee. Completing the final step in the process that has seen the Brewers make the playoffs in eight of the past nine seasons and win the most games in the majors in the regular season in both 2025 and 2026.
Confirmation that they can win it all their way: Reasonably low payroll, mostly homegrown players, with speed and defense on the position-player side of things and power pitching up and down the entire staff. Affirmation that you can still win a World Series without having to sign expensive free agents. -- David Schoenfield
Three reasons Milwaukee can win:
Where the Brewers are vulnerable: To beat the Brewers, you have to take advantage of their starting rotation. It begins with running up the pitch counts of their two front-line starters, Jacob Misiorowski and Logan Henderson. The Dodgers actually did a good job of making those two work in Games 1 and 2 of the NLCS, getting them both out before the end of the fifth inning. The problem was they couldn’t cash in on run-scoring opportunities.
The Brewers’ starting options beyond Misiorowski and Henderson are relatively uninspiring, a list composed of Robert Gasser, Dustin May and Shane Drohan. Brewers manager Pat Murphy will want to rely more heavily on his bullpen in Games 3 and 4. If the Rays can tax those high-leverage arms early in this series, they’ll be in good shape. Also, the more looks their hitters can get against the likes of Ashby, Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill, the better off they’ll be.
But make no mistake: scoring early will be a must for the Rays. -- Alden Gonzalez
How the Brewers can pitch Junior Caminero: There was an ongoing conversation in the last series that Caminero had trouble with high fastballs. That makes some sense since his swing plane is steeper than average in order to lift the ball when he puts it in play, so a flat fastball at the top of the zone doesn’t intersect with his bat path; a sinker at the bottom of the zone would match his swing plane much better.
His regular season miss rates and damage heat map shows that his misses cluster well above the zone, clear chases, but he does plenty of damage just inside and just above the top of the strike zone and lots of damage if you miss below that spot in center-cut locations. So, you don’t want to go to this well that often. A steady diet of breaking stuff off the plate low and away, then high fastballs above the zone when he starts to lean over the plate should work if he chases. If Caminero can lay off those pitches, then you’re really in trouble. -- Kiley McDaniel
Tampa Bay Rays
Chance of winning: 40.1%
What’s on the line for the Rays: In their 29th season in Tampa Bay, the first World Series title in franchise history. Completing the final step in a long run of success -- World Series appearances in 2008 and 2020, 10 90-win seasons since and 10 playoff appearances since 2008, the best record in the American League in 2026.
Confirmation that they can win their way: Low payroll, defense, speed, small ball, finding and developing players acquired from other organizations -- like Junior Caminero, Yandy Diaz and Drew Rasmussen. Affirmation that you can still win a World Series without having to sign expensive free agents. -- Schoenfield
Three reasons Tampa Bay can win:
Where the Rays are vulnerable: The only potential weakness on the Rays comes in the middle of their bullpen. Subtract closer Bryan Baker’s seven scoreless innings and the rest of Tampa’s bullpen has a 4.70 ERA this postseason.
If the Brewers can elevate pitch counts of the Rays’ starters, they’ll be able to get to the underbelly of that Rays pen. That bodes well in a best-of-seven series as it’s harder to hide arms -- in fact seeing them multiple times will only benefit Milwaukee. -- Jesse Rogers
How the Rays can attack Jacob Misiorowski: As you probably guess, this is no easy task. With his fastball, Miz tends to pitch up and away from righties, and his breaking stuff is aimed low and away, for tunneling purposes. The damage against those two groups of pitches comes when they’re in mistake locations: a breaking ball backs up, in the zone on the inner half or a fastball misses its spot, basically in that same spot. In two playoff starts, roughly 10% of his pitches went into this zone and a third of those were fouled off.
The game plan is to stay alive long enough so when he makes 5-10 pitches that are “mistakes” (remember: His stuff is still the best in baseball) you’re swinging and not fouling it off. The bad news? The three pitches in that zone that were put in play in the playoffs were all groundouts to shortstop. -- Kiley McDaniel
Our predictions
Milwaukee Brewers (12 votes)
Voters: Jorge Castillo, Tristan Cockcroft, Bradford Doolittle, Alden Gonzalez, Eric Karabell, Tim Keown, Tim Kurkjian, Kiley McDaniel, Dan Mullen, Buster Olney, Jeff Passan, Jesse Rogers
In how many games? Seven games (7 votes), Six games (5 votes)
MVP: Jackson Chourio (3 votes), William Contreras (3 votes), Brice Turang (3 vote), Jacob Misiorowski (1 vote), Jake Bauers (1 vote), Garrett Mitchell (1 vote)
Tampa Bay Rays (3 votes)
Voters: Doug Glanville, Paul Hembekides, David Schoenfield
In how many games? Six games (2 votes), Seven games (1 vote)
MVP: Jonathan Aranda (1 vote), Yandy Diaz (1 vote), Drew Rasmussen (1 vote)
Explaining our picks
The Brewers were our consensus choice. Why did you pick Milwaukee?
As with the Dodgers’ last year, when I had it roughly 60-40 in favor of L.A. -- similar to this year’s probabilities that favor Milwaukee -- it’s hard for me to pick against that strong of a projection.
At the same time, we know that even a seven-game series is far too small of a sample to ensure that the better team will win, so you do need to justify yourself with some matchup-specific observations. With this pairing, it’s not hard for me to do that when picking the Brewers.
The teams are similar in big ways but different in the smaller things that add up to those big things and in a way that I ultimately think favors the Brewers. The Rays are good at everything, but the Brewers are as well, and everything Tampa Bay does well, Milwaukee is a little better. Except for bunting, that is, but as I wrote elsewhere, if the Rays are baseball’s bunting juggernaut, the team right behind them is Milwaukee.
The rotation edge the Rays enjoyed over the Yankees and Guardians shouldn’t be as acute in the World Series. We haven’t seen the best of Jacob Misiorowski so far, and while he has been out of sorts with his command, I still think he has enough left to enjoy at least one signature outing. If it’s Game 1, then that doesn’t bode well for the Rays if they face him again, familiarity-related trends aside. If Misiorowski brings his A-game twice in the series, that’s two Brewers wins, no matter who the Rays have starting.
The Brewers also know Drew Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta well, as both pitched for Milwaukee. Call it a hunch, but I think this will give the Brewers an edge, whether it comes to picking up tells or whatever. Sure, Rasmussen and Peralta have been executing so well that it might not matter, but I don’t see their run continuing at the same pace against Milwaukee.
Finally, the Milwaukee offense is just better by a good margin. These teams both have great outfield defenses but that may not show up much against the offenses with the two lowest average launch angles, according to TruMedia. But the Brewers’ infield defense is as good as its outfield defense, while the Rays’ infielders are less accomplished.
The Rays’ pitching staff might not issue walks at the rate where the Brewers’ lineup typically feasts, but Milwaukee can adjust to a more aggressive style and score with their combination of contact hitting, high BABIP and baserunning. Milwaukee also hits the ball harder more consistently and for more extra bases. I just see more pathways for the Brewers to score than for the Rays.
The Series is not a blowout, by any stretch. But I see the Brewers as the definitive favorite and I’m picking them to win in six. -- Doolittle
And why do you think the Rays will win it all?
The Brewers, coming off their sweep of the Dodgers in the NLCS, are understandably sizable favorites in this World Series, but the underdog Rays match up well in two key areas that could lead to an upset.
First, the Rays put the ball in play, posting the lowest strikeout rate in the majors in the regular season. Their two top hitters, Junior Caminero and Yandy Diaz, both struck out below the league average rate, with Diaz fanning just 14.3% of the time, a top-25 mark among qualified hitters. Chandler Simpson was the second toughest hitter to whiff and Liam Hicks, who hasn’t done much in the postseason but had an .801 OPS between the Marlins and Rays, was the seventh-toughest hitter to strike out.
Caminero did have some strikeout issues in the ALCS but got going in the final three games with three balls scorched at 106-plus mph plus a home run in Game 6. He’ll need a big series but is equipped to handle Milwaukee’s power staff: He had the sixth-highest OPS in the majors against pitches of 97-plus mph, hitting .339 with five home runs. The second highest OPS? Hicks.
Second, the Rays throw strikes, the perfect counterattack to the Brewers’ patient approach on offense. The Rays’ pitchers had the lowest walk rate in the regular season -- and the second-highest rate of first-pitch strikes. The Brewers have a very specific approach to their offensive strategy. With the bases empty, they’re not trying to hit home runs -- they’re trying to get on base and start the chaos. They had the lowest home run rate in the majors with the bases empty. With runners in scoring position, they still draw their walks, but they go for a little more power, improving their home run rate to 16th.
We saw this approach work against the Dodgers, as they drew 18 walks in four games and hit seven home runs (although six of their seven home runs were solo shots). But the Rays will present a different challenge. The first-pitch cat-and-mouse game will be fascinating. Will the Brewers’ hitters continue to try to work the counts in their favor or get more aggressive if the Rays are pounding the zone?
One final reason to like the Rays: Drew Rasmussen and Freddy Peralta are on a roll right now. Rasmussen allowed three runs in his three postseason starts while averaging seven innings per outing -- thus helping to limit the innings of the bullpen. Contrast that with Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski, who couldn’t get through five innings in either of his two playoff starts. Peralta, meanwhile, has allowed two runs in his three starts. Logan Henderson, Milwaukee’s No. 2 starter, has also failed to pitch deeper into games.
The Brewers don’t even have a No. 4 starter, going with a bullpen game in the fourth game of the NLCS. This bullpen-heavy approach worked out since that series was a sweep (indeed, Brewers relievers have been credited with all seven of their postseason wins), but the longer the World Series goes, the more likely that Milwaukee bullpen wears down and the advantage switches to the Rays. We saw how Rays hitters started doing more damage against a very good Cleveland bullpen later in that series -- Caminero, Diaz and Jonathan Aranda hit .385 with three home runs and 10 RBIs over the final three games.
Look for that to happen again -- and for the Rays to win the World Series. -- Schoenfield