Brewers vs. Rays
Some convenient scheduling by MLB allowed everybody to focus on the NFL before locking back into the Fall Classic, as Sunday was a travel day for the two teams. The Brewers took a 2-0 lead with them from Wisconsin to Florida, while Tampa Bay heads back to St. Pete for Game 3, a place where they were 55-26 in the regular season and 4-1 this postseason.
One of the old adages is that “you’re never in trouble in a playoff series until you lose at home,” which is a dangerous thing to believe. The Rays seem to be in trouble here with how the series has played out to this point, but a win in Game 3 would get them right back in it.
Brewers vs. Rays (-120, 7) Game 3 World Series Prediction
Monday, 8 p.m. ET (FOX)
Milwaukee beat one former Brewer in Game 2 and they’ll hope to do it again here in Game 3, as Trade Deadline acquisition Freddy Peralta gets the nod for the Rays. Peralta was acquired from the Mets, who never seemed to get him on track. It took a few outings for the suggested adjustments and pitch usage changes to take hold for “Fastball Freddy”, but he’s been terrific in the postseason thus far and was excellent in his final four regular-season starts.
Peralta has worked 16.2 innings over three starts and a relief outing. He has allowed just two runs on 12 hits, but he also only has 12 strikeouts against seven walks, so you wonder how this start will go for him. He was able to overpower Cleveland’s platoon-heavy lineup with high fastballs above the swing path and changeups that help neutralize left-handed batters. Milwaukee has a more balanced lineup. Furthermore, the Brewers walk a lot. Peralta owns a 9.2% BB% for his career and a 9.9% BB% in the postseason overall. This season, it’s 10.1%.
Obviously the analytically-savvy Brewers have a ton of data on Peralta, who was with the team from 2018-25 before getting traded to the Mets in the Jett Williams/Brandon Sproat deal. Peralta is a free agent after the season and a big effort here should get some more money added to his offers, especially since his team badly needs it.
Robert Gasser, added by the Brewers in the Josh Hader deal with San Diego, emerged as the season went along. He finished with a 3.87 ERA, 4.27 xERA, and a 4.23 FIP over 109.1 innings of work, but really shined in the second half with a 2.86 ERA and a .280 wOBA against. He gave up 10 homers in just 46.1 innings in the first half, but cut that number down to five in 16.2 more innings in the second half.
This postseason, Gasser has allowed one run on six hits over 37 batters faced with a 6/2 K/BB ratio. Like many Brewers, he did a good job minimizing hard contact, but he’s not a hard-thrower like Jacob Misiorowski or Logan Henderson. Gasser’s got a five-pitch mix and sits around 93 mph with the fastball. He’s more of a throwback type of left-hander. During the regular season, the Rays were just 27th in wOBA against LHP, slashing .248/.315/.364. They slashed .246/.306/.361 in the second half and .254/.325/.346 in September.
In other words, the Rays hit for very little power against southpaws. That should work to Gasser’s advantage, given that he has been a fly-ball guy this season and an even heavier fly-ball guy in the playoffs.
The Brewers have batted .288/.373/.394 with 11 strikeouts and nine walks, so they’re putting lots of balls in play. The Rays are batting .222/.279/.317, but they’ve struck out 19 times with just four walks. Milwaukee just seems like the more prepared team on a nightly basis relative to their opponents and not just in this series. They have the right gameplan every single time it seems and will certainly have memorized the book on Peralta.
Brewers vs. Rays World Series Game 3 Prediction
The luxury of having so many good relievers is that Pat Murphy doesn’t have to burn anybody out. He purposely avoided Trevor Megill and stuck with the hot hand of Aaron Ashby in Game 2. DL Hall and JoJo Romero combined for 27 pitches. It is no secret that the Rays struggle with lefties and there’s a realistic possibility that they get Gasser and then nothing but lefties until Megill in this one. Peralta has made changes, throwing exclusively from the stretch and from the other side of the rubber, but the Brewers will have a ton of data points on him and have had the off day to digest them.
Pick: Brewers -101
