How Tampa Bay Rays, Milwaukee Brewers can win World Series

The 2026 World Series is set and it will feature the Tampa Bay Rays taking on the Milwaukee Brewers.

After Milwaukee swept the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, Tampa Bay outlasted the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Championship Series.

What carried Milwaukee and Tampa Bay this far -- and will it continue to work in a showdown of No. 1 seeds? Which stars will dominate the Fall Classic? And who else must come through? Our MLB experts provide your first look at this year's World Series matchup.

Note: Matchup odds come from Bradford Doolittle's formula using power ratings as the basis for 10,000 simulations to determine the most likely outcomes. Team temperatures are based on Bill James' formula for determining how "hot" or "cold" a team is at any given point; average is 72°.

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Milwaukee Brewers

This is a World Series between the best teams in their respective leagues all season. The Rays and Brewers are arguably the two best-run organizations in baseball. Neither has won a World Series. It's a great matchup.

The Brewers' bullpen has been the best of this year's playoff dozen, while the Rays' rotation has been the best in the field. However, the flip has been true as well: The Milwaukee starters have been very good, as has Tampa Bay's bullpen. Both have played good defense, with the Brewers leading all teams in playoff OPS allowed on balls in play, while the Rays rank fourth.

Thus, everything points to across-the-board elite run prevention and a bunch of low-scoring, close World Series games decided by who wins high-leverage moments. During the season, the Rays were baseball's best high-leverage pitching staff, while the Brewers topped the leaderboard in high-leverage hitting. This feels like what will decide the series: Can the Rays' pitchers withstand the grinding Milwaukee lineup in enough big moments to piece together four victories? -- Doolittle

Milwaukee Brewers

Odds of winning: 59%

Team temperature: 124°

What is the No. 1 factor that has carried the Brewers to the World Series for the first time in four decades?

Doolittle: The bullpen has been the overriding factor with a 1.33 ERA and .472 OPS allowed though Milwaukee's eight games. The bullpen's BABIP is .202, so the defense behind the hot relievers has played a key role in this as well. The key quartet of Trevor Megill, Aaron Ashby, Abner Uribe and DL Hall has allowed the Brewers to not just protect slim, late leads, but also has kept the deficits they've inherited in check. This, in conjunction with a Milwaukee offense that gets better over the course of a game, has allowed the Brewers to win six playoff games that they trailed at some point.

Schoenfield: Great at-bats, especially with runners on base, best exemplified by Jackson Chourio's two-run walk-off single to beat Mason Miller and the Padres in the NL Division Series and then Jake Bauers' two-for-the-ages battles in the NLCS when he drew a 12-pitch walk off Yoshinobu Yamamoto to set up Christian Yelich's two-run single in Game 2 and then hit an 11th-pitch home run off Blake Snell for a two-run, go-ahead home run in Game 3.

This is what the Brewers did all regular season. They drew the second-most walks in the majors and had the lowest chase rate. No team swung less often than the Brewers. This patient approach carried over to when runners were on base, where the Brewers again had the lowest swing rate and second-lowest chase rate. They hit .276 with runners in scoring position, best in the majors, and their home run rate actually increased -- from last in the majors with the bases empty to 15th. They make you throw strikes and then with runners on base are more likely to make you pay.

Why will it/won't it continue against the American League team?

Doolittle: The Brewers' sweep of the Dodgers affords Pat Murphy the luxury of letting that bullpen core recharge heading into the Fall Classic. Not that it was looking worn, but Uribe at least struggled in his last NLCS outing after being used in each of Milwaukee's first seven playoff games. But after a week off, he and the others should be more than ready to go. The Rays present a fresh challenge but there is no reason to think Milwaukee's bullpen is going to cool off anytime soon.

Schoenfield: The Brewers aren't going to change their approach, but this will be a matchup of strengths because Rays pitchers had the lowest walk rate in the majors and the second-highest rate of first-pitch strikes. Ace Drew Rasmussen walked just 32 batters in 30 regular-season starts and just three in his three postseason starts. The one Brewers hitter who has been more aggressive in the playoffs has been Chourio, who is swinging 56% of the time compared with 47% in the regular season. He has had some big hits, including two home runs, but is hitting .171 with just one walk in 38 plate appearances.

Jacob Misiorowski was the best pitcher in the NL all season but has shown some signs of slowing down in the postseason. What should we expect from him in the World Series?

Doolittle: The bar Misiorowski set for himself during the regular season was so high that it might not be entirely fair to expect a replication of those numbers against playoff offenses. There's no doubt that the stuff hasn't been as crisp. He's getting fewer swing-and-misses than during the season and has been out of the strike a lot more often. His fastball velocity hasn't been that different, but the spin rate is down. With better command, Misiorowski can get deeper into games than he has thus far in October, but given his overall innings count (183), it would be a surprise to see Misiorowski snap back to his 1.80-ERA, regular-season self. But that doesn't mean he won't be a load for the Rays.

Schoenfield: There is probably legitimate concern that Misiorowski is a little tired at the end of his first full season in the majors. His swinging strike rate has fallen from 19.1% in the regular season to 11.5% in his two playoff starts and he failed to last five innings in either game.

Some of that is facing better lineups, but it could be fatigue. The Brewers were careful to limit his innings in September and he will have 11 days off between outings assuming he starts Game 1, so maybe that will help. Still, given the dominance of the Milwaukee bullpen, expect another shorter outing.

Which one other player is most crucial to the Brewers' Fall Classic hopes?

Doolittle: The very essence of the Brewers' team-oriented approach makes it tough to anoint any one player, but let's go with William Contreras. He is the driving force of this team, with his work behind the plate and as a key run producer at the plate. But he's also Milwaukee's most intense competitor, and if he's rolling in this series, the Brewers will roll along with him.

Schoenfield: Bauers looks locked in right now, so having guys on base in front of him will be key and that points to Brice Turang. The best second baseman in the majors hit .169 with one home run and just three RBIs through his first 18 career postseason games, but then had a great series against the Dodgers, scoring runs in all four games while going 4-for-11 with a double, home run and five walks. He drove in 100 runs and scored 102 in the regular season, can pop a ball over the fence with 21 home runs and can steal a bag (in addition to his great defense). A Turang/Bauers duo can do plenty of damage.

Tampa Bay Rays

Odds of winning: 41%

Team temperature: 102°

What is the No. 1 factor that has carried the Rays to the World Series as the AL's top seed?

Jorge Castillo: For all the talk about bullpens in October, the Rays take a more old-school approach. For Tampa Bay, it starts with the starting pitching. The top three of Drew Rasmussen, Freddy Peralta and Nick Martinez have given crucial length. That has allowed manager Kevin Cash to deploy his best relievers and avoid overusing his bullpen. The importance was evident in the ALCS against a Guardians club that used just two traditional starters. Starting pitching is paramount in October.

Jeff Passan: Between the Rays' pitching and defense, they've allowed fewer than one baserunner an inning and have the highest strike-to-walkout ratio of the four LCS teams. Ace Rasmussen leads all postseason pitchers with 21 innings, and everything is working, from the 1.29 ERA to the 38.8% chase rate. Peralta, who started the clincher, will get to face his old team looking the best he has since Milwaukee traded him over the winter. And with closer Bryan Baker and setup men Cam Booser and Tyler Wells, the Rays' formula -- starting pitching that goes deep, high-end relief to finish -- has transitioned nicely from the regular season to the playoffs.

Why will it/won't it continue against the Brewers?

Castillo: It will be more difficult to shut down the Brewers' offense, which scored the second-most runs in the majors during the regular season and outslugged the mighty Dodgers in the NLCS with seven home runs to their one. It's a fascinating matchup between the offense with baseball's lowest chase and a rotation that peppers the strike zone. Will it continue? If it doesn't, beating the Brewers four times in seven games is unlikely.

Passan: Milwaukee is like 24-grit sandpaper for opposing pitchers, grinding even the toughest competitor to an uncomfortable place. And yet the Rays, after taking off five days because of their bye, four more after their division series sweep and losing another because of an ALCS rainout, hadn't found their rhythm until Game 4 against Cleveland. Now they look like themselves, which is almost a mirror image of Milwaukee.

Tampa Bay takes professional at-bats, runs like wild, treats the sacrifice bunt with nobility, throws lots of strikes and plays clean in the field. So as dominant as the Brewers have looked, don't be surprised if this series turns into the Spider-Man meme, with both sides pointing at one another because everything looks so familiar.

Junior Caminero is one of the most exciting young stars in the sport. What should we expect from him in the World Series?

Castillo: The player we saw from late March through September. Caminero, by his standards, has had an underwhelming postseason after clubbing 42 home runs during the regular season. He was 7-for-30 with 13 strikeouts and zero home runs in the Rays' nine games before busting out with a home run -- and an epic celebration -- in Monday's series-clinching win.

It didn't help that he hit a ball 110.7 mph with a 29-degree launch angle that somehow didn't go over the wall at Progressive Field in Game 4 -- it was the first such ball hit that hard and at that angle not got for a home run in the Statcast era (since 2015). Caminero cracked a go-ahead 110.2 mph RBI double later in that game so he has given the Rays some timely production. But Caminero expects more. He loves the big stage, and it doesn't get bigger than the World Series.

Passan: More than he has shown so far. The fact that the Rays advanced to the World Series having hit only six home runs -- just one of them from Caminero -- is impressive in and of itself. Caminero showed flashes even before his Game 5 blast in the ALCS, particularly in Game 4, when he hammered a pair of balls 110 mph-plus -- one for a 400-foot-plus out and the other for a rocket double down the line.

At 23, Caminero's bona fides are incontrovertible: He swings the bat faster than anyone in baseball, let alone in the World Series, and his raw power is top of the scale. He has shown up in big playoff moments in the Dominican Winter League. Now it's time to do the same domestically and make everyone forget he enters the World Series with a .233/.303/.333 line this postseason.

Which one other player is most crucial to the Rays' Fall Classic hopes?

Castillo: The Rays rely heavily on their starting pitching, and it starts with their ace. Drew Rasmussen -- not Jacob Misiorowski -- has been the best pitcher this postseason. He began it by carrying a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Yankees in Game 1 of the ALDS, finishing with eight scoreless innings and 10 strikeouts. He held Cleveland to two runs over six innings in Game 1 of the ALCS and one run over seven innings in Game 5. He has flummoxed hitters with a pitch mix featuring three fastballs and a nasty changeup. The length has allowed the Rays to avoid overexposing their bullpen. The Brewers present a much stiffer challenge. If he's not up for it, the Rays are in trouble.

Passan: Tampa Bay struggled in the first three games of the ALCS because its offense flailed -- and considering Milwaukee's pitchers bring significantly more octane than Cleveland's and the Rays had the second-lowest OPS in MLB on 98 mph-plus fastballs, they need first baseman Jonathan Aranda to be better. On such heaters this year, Aranda hit .091/.268/.182 in 41 plate appearances. Tampa Bay hums when Aranda, Caminero and Yandy Diaz are hitting, and seeing as the Brewers' average fastball this postseason is 98.3 mph -- that is not a misprint -- the Rays need contributions from those who have been felled by big-time heaters to stand a chance against Milwaukee's pitching staff.