Archive for 2026 Postseason

Throughout the playoffs, the Brewers have blitzed past their opposition so quickly that their bullpen management has felt like an afterthought. The Rays, meanwhile, have subsisted on having their starters work deep while keeping their bullpen relatively fresh. Those two trends haven’t played much of a role in the World Series yet, and they might not; the Brewers are on the verge of a sweep, after all, and a 10-1 rout yesterday left the leverage arms in both ‘pens fresh. But with tonight’s Game 4 pitting Griffin Jax against a yet-to-be-announced Brewers opener, relievers are squarely on the menu, so let’s review how each ‘pen stacks up in terms of rest and familiarity.

Brewers Bullpen

The Brewers went to the same pattern twice to open the World Series: Abner Uribe for the top of the lineup, then Aaron Ashby afterwards for a longer stint. I don’t know the exact size of the reliever familiarity effect, but it definitely isn’t zero, and with a full bullpen game, the Brewers will have to think through their matchups carefully to minimize how many looks at the same guy they’re giving the opposition. Read the rest of this entry »

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Pat Murphy, face stern and wide as ever, stepped forward and cupped his hands to his ears to signal a replay challenge.

With runners on first and second and two out in the top of the fifth inning of Game 3 of the World Series, William Contreras had just topped a ball to third. Instead of making a throw across the diamond, Junior Caminero went the short way for the force at second.

Caminero’s got a big arm, and Contreras is a catcher, but still — the Rays third baseman was on the move and off-balance after spinning to grab the ball. With two outs, Christian Yelich was running on contact, but the 34-year-old doesn’t run like he used to. Might as well go next door. It was a bang-bang play, but second base umpire Dan Bellino called Yelich out. Read the rest of this entry »

The first two games of the World Series were each decided by one run. By one measly run on Friday night and one measly run on Saturday night, the Rays found their backs against the wall. Erase a baserunning blunder here or a defensive lapse there, and the series could have been tied, or even 2-0 in favor of Tampa Bay rather than Milwaukee. Such things can haunt a team. In Game 3 on Monday night, the Brewers relieved the Rays of those would’ves, could’ves, and should’ves with a 10-1 thrashing that left no room for doubt. It was kind of like taking somebody’s mind off a scraped knee by punching them in the throat.

Lefty Robert Gasser, fresh off his first fullish major league season, continued his sparkling postseason run. Gasser went six innings, allowed just two baserunners, and because one was erased by a double play and the other on a caught stealing, he faced just 18 batters. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s the fewest batters you can face over six innings. Jackson Chourio, continuing his bid for World Series MVP and household name status, racked up four base hits, all of them hit 99 mph or harder. But singling out individual Brewers misses the larger point. All nine hitters in the Milwaukee starting lineup reached base. Eight of them had base hits. Eight of them had at least one hard-hit ball. Eight of them had at least one RBI. All nine of them scored. They outhit the Rays, 16-3.

The Rays started former Brewer ace Freddy Peralta, and for short while, it looked like he might give his old team fits and give the Rays a chance to climb back into the series. But a wild fifth inning put an end to that particular revenge fantasy. The Brewers led by so much that they emptied the bench to make sure everybody got to hit. They led by so much that they put in Brandon Woodruff, whose shoulder had kept him out since the Fourth of July, to pitch the ninth. The Brewers lead the series 3-0, and as we all know, that makes them the 44th team in AL/NL history to go up 3-0 in a seven-game series. Forty-two of the previous 43 went on to close the deal. In other words, history says the Brewers have a 97.67% chance of raising the trophy, while the Rays have just a 2.33% chance of snatching it from their yeasty, hoppy hands. Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday night, in the first inning of Game 2 of the World Series in Milwaukee, Rays left fielder Chandler Simpson slapped an RBI single through the left side of the infield. Once the hometown fans had finished groaning and the visitor’s dugout had exhausted its supply of high fives, Simpson’s presence on first base temporarily warped the gravitational pull of the World Series.

A chyron featuring Simpson’s stolen base totals for the regular season provided an impromptu long division lesson: 46 steals, 60 attempts, 76.7% success rate. The camera zoomed in on him as he conferred with first base coach Corey Dickerson (who, it’s worth noting, didn’t come close to stealing 46 bases in his entire 11-year career), and Brewers first baseman Jake Bauers did his best to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping. When starter Logan Henderson came set, the broadcast switched to a side-by-side-by-side shot that showed Simpson bracketed by Henderson and catcher William Contreras. Contreras stayed in a high, one-knee crouch and sneaked peeks down to first base before and after each pitch to Junior Caminero. Henderson tried to freeze Simpson by standing as still as a statue while the pitch clock ticked down toward zero on one pitch, then firing the next as soon as he came set. Everybody knew it was only a matter of time.

It happened on the fourth pitch. Despite Henderson’s best efforts, Simpson timed him up perfectly. At the exact moment Henderson raised his left heel, Simpson took off like a shot. The pitch was a fastball and Contreras was already on his feet by the time it arrived. He made a quick transition and fired a laser down to second base, a foot or two higher and more toward the first base side of the bag than he’d intended, but by no means a terrible throw. It didn’t matter. Simpson already had second base stolen. His hand touched the bag as second baseman Brice Turang’s glove closed around the ball. In a bit of visually pleasing accidental choreography, when Turang turned to attempt a swipe tag, Simpson was executing his own, equally sharp turn. He was also, temporarily, weightless.

Read the rest of this entry »

Liam Hicks had an adventurous night during Game 2 of the World Series in Milwaukee. In the first inning, after the Rays had already plated two runs against Brewers starter Logan Henderson, Hicks clubbed a two-run homer — the first homer of this year’s World Series, in fact — to extend the lead to 4-0. In the sixth inning, after that lead had been trimmed to a single run, he was thrown out at the plate while trying to score, a play that loomed particularly large in what became a 5-4 defeat that put the Rays in a two-games-to-none series hole. While Hicks has scuffled at the plate for much of the postseason, he’s come up big a few times, and has had a substantial impact since being acquired from the Marlins in a deadline-day trade.

By the time Hicks batted for the first time on Saturday night, the 24-year-old Henderson had already thrown 23 pitches. Yandy Díaz led off, and after battling for seven pitches, he reached second base when shortstop Cooper Pratt threw away a fairly routine groundball. He scored on a Chandler Simpson single, and after Simpson stole second, Junior Caminero worked the count full and then fouled off a couple of pitches before singling home Simpson. Up came Hicks, and after he fouled off a high four-seamer, Henderson left an 87.8-mph cutter in the middle of the plate. Hicks connected, launching the ball 411 feet to right center for a two-run homer.

With that, Hicks — who was born and raised in Toronto, rooting for Blue Jays teams that featured Russell Martin — became just the fourth Canadian-born player to homer in a World Series, after the Yankees’ George Selkirk (Games 1 and 5 in 1936), the Cardinals’ Larry Walker (Games 1 and 3 in 2004), and the Blue Jays’ Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Games 4 and 5 in 2025). No pressure to hit another, eh? Read the rest of this entry »

MILWAUKEE — You all know the theoretical concept of a replacement-level player. I suspect I’m not the only one who associates that concept with a specific person: The guy who’s continuously mediocre despite repeated exposure to big league competition. The longer he sticks around, the more chances he gets, the more I catch myself thinking, “Why? Can’t they at least try to find someone better?”

Until this year, that guy, for me, was Jake Bauers. In his 20s, Bauers played for seven different organizations, spending six seasons in the majors. In 615 games, he hit .211/.307/.365, which is a wRC+ of 88, with 58 home runs, a 29.0% strikeout rate, and -0.4 career WAR. He was a first baseman, and not an exceptional defender, who hit for neither average nor power, and struck out a lot. He isn’t a great athlete, and as a seventh-round pick out of a high school in Huntington Beach, California, he had neither the prospect pedigree nor the winning collegiate track record that would warrant so many chances.

I didn’t get it, especially because Bauers had toured so many organizations — the Padres, the Rays, the Guardians, the Yankees, and most latterly the Brewers — who have earned a reputation for knowing what they’re doing. Why did this most replaceable of players keep getting chances? Read the rest of this entry »

Playing professional baseball is so hard, and requires so much preternatural ability, that it borders on impossible for the civilian mind to comprehend. Hitting a 90 mile an hour pitch — let alone the 100 mph ones warping the fabric of the sport — requires a combination of hand-eye coordination, anticipation, and kinetic movement that most people straight up cannot attain. Whereas with other professions, the concept of achieving greatness is graspable — I have not, and never will, write the next great American novel, but I can at least formulate the thought of how to do so — watching a major league baseball game and trying to imagine oneself in that position is total fantasy.

That being said, if you were to take the three foundational elements of the game — hitting, pitching, and fielding — and force a rando from the local bar to perform one of them, I’d argue that fielding would be by far the easiest. No one who isn’t regularly playing baseball, or is at least recently removed from doing so, is rolling out of bed and getting bat to ball in a World Series game. And while getting an out from the mound might be doable simply because the fielders could help, the pitches coming from commoner arms would be deeply comical in comparison to the real thing. But catching a popup or fielding a grounder could be done, even if some of the participants in Game 2 of the World Series produced evidence to the contrary.

The miscues started early in Saturday night’s feverish game between the Rays and Brewers. Yandy Díaz, the very first hitter of the night, pushed a weak groundball to Milwaukee shortstop Cooper Pratt to get things going. Pratt ushered the ball into his glove and readied for a throw that some (though not all) slightly athletic normies could make. But, perhaps because this was a big, important baseball game that was on television and not just a hypothetical exercise for some guy’s blog, Pratt did not complete the throw and instead bounced it right into the camera well. One batter, one error. Read the rest of this entry »

MILWAUKEE — In the bottom of the sixth inning of Game 2 of the World Series, Brewers right fielder Sal Frelick dug in against Rays reliever Ian Seymour with his team trailing by a run.

Seymour’s first pitch, a sinker, landed right in the middle of the zone for a called strike one.

The Brewers had trailed 4-0 in this game before they’d even come to the plate, but they’d been in this position before. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of the time, life isn’t a storybook. The problem in Act One isn’t tied up with a bow in Act Three. Yesterday’s villain doesn’t always become today’s hero; in fact, they frequently stay today’s villain. But the baseball gods must have been hankering for a redemption arc Saturday night. Cooper Pratt was the scapegoat for an early Tampa Bay rally in Game 2, and then the hero for a late Milwaukee response, as the Brewers persevered for a 5-4 victory that staked them to a 2-0 lead in the World Series.

Before the raucous Milwaukee fans had even settled into their seats, Pratt got an easy chance to open the game, a weak grounder off the bat of the lead-footed Yandy Díaz. But Pratt played himself into trouble by waiting too long to commit. He got to the ball late, rushed his throw, and chucked it into the dugout on a hop. Just like that, the pressure was on, and the Brewers were down – down by a shocking four runs, in fact. After consecutive run-scoring singles, Liam Hicks tattooed a Logan Henderson cutter right down Wisconsin Ave for a two-run bomb:

All October, that kind of lead had been more than Drew Rasmussen has needed. Tampa Bay’s ace has been automatic all month, the best pitcher in the playoffs hands down. But he was out of sorts on Saturday, and the Rays defense was just as discombobulated. With two on and one out in the first, Jonathan Aranda tracked a foul ball to the netting, but he couldn’t squeeze it into his glove. Given a second chance at life, William Contreras hit what looked like an inning-ending double-play ball – but Richie Palacios was charging toward second base to cover a potential steal, and he couldn’t change directions in time to get a glove on it. Garrett Mitchell tacked on with a two-out single that cut the deficit to two and brought Pratt to the plate. But Pratt’s redemption was not forthcoming. He struck out on three pitches, putting an unceremonious stop to the rally.

Henderson and Rasmussen were both uneven today. They struggled to miss bats, and thus to end at-bats. Henderson needed 64 pitches to get through the first three innings, and Brewers manager Pat Murphy didn’t need to see anything further. He turned to his bullpen for the last six innings of work, something he’s been unafraid of all year. Rays skipper Kevin Cash has been more patient with his starters this fall, but Rasmussen couldn’t hold his form. He briefly got into a groove, retiring six straight Brewers, but he couldn’t keep it going. Pratt, of all people, broke the streak. He worked a one-out walk in the bottom of the fourth inning, kicking off a bottom-of-the-lineup rally. Sal Frelick followed with a line drive single. And then the Rays continued their shocking streak of defensive lapses. David Hamilton hit a weak grounder to first, and chaos ensued:

Read the rest of this entry »

If last night’s Game 1 was any indication of the action to come, we’re in for a thrilling World Series. The Brewers jumped out to an early lead and barely held on to beat the Rays, 3-2.

The game had plenty of action. The first run scored on a Christian Yelich triple to center field. Jonny DeLuca laid out for it and nearly made a sensational catch. It was a fitting way for a World Series between these two teams to begin. There were two outs at third base, the first when Victor Mesa Jr. was caught stealing to end the top of the fifth, the second in the home half of the frame when Mesa cut down David Hamilton trying to stretch a double. William Contreras caught two Rays trying to steal. Junior Caminero scorched a 112.7-mph double in the fourth inning. Jacob Misiorowski casually and consistently threw 103-mph heaters, but only struck out three batters. The Rays loaded the bases against closer Trevor Megill in the ninth, and grounded into what was initially ruled a game-ending double play. Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash challenged, and the out call at second was overturned after replay revealed that shortstop Cooper Pratt’s foot came off the bag before he received the throw from second baseman Brice Turang. The call at first was confirmed for the second out, but a run scored. Still, the drama was all for naught; Megill took the mound again and struck out DeLuca to end it.

For more on the fun in Game 1, check out Michael Baumann’s story from Milwaukee. He’ll be providing in-person reporting throughout the World Series, so be sure to follow along. And if you haven’t yet joined us for a Members-Only Game Thread during this postseason, I can’t recommend them enough. Conversations we’ve had in those threads inspired two of the questions we’re answering in this week’s mailbag, on the most heroic World Series losers and the fewest number of starts a pitcher would need to win the Cy Young. We’ll get to those questions and more in a moment, but first, I’d like to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs Members. If you aren’t yet a Member and would like to keep reading, you can sign up for a Membership here. It’s the best way to both experience the site and support our staff, and it comes with a bunch of other great benefits. Also, if you’d like to ask a question for an upcoming mailbag, send me an email at mailbag@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »