Brewers Saved Misiorowski — the Rays Have a Game 5 Pitching Crisis
GOATIFYMilwaukee was three outs from a championship. Now it has the most intimidating pitcher in the World Series ready for another start, while Tampa Bay is trying to assemble nine innings from whichever arms can still answer the call. That is the strange imbalance awaiting Game 5 on Wednesday, October 28: the Brewers lead the series 3–1 and can finish the job behind Jacob Misiorowski; the Rays have just survived an exhausting 12-inning escape and have not named a rested starter.
The temptation is to treat this as a mismatch decided before first pitch. It is not. Three of the first four games were settled by a single run, the Rays have finally remembered how to put pressure on Milwaukee's defense, and the Brewers' spectacular bullpen has just experienced its first serious crack. But Game 5 will ask whether one emotional comeback can overcome the very practical cost of surviving it. The difference between a second straight Tampa Bay win and Milwaukee's first title may be measured in available innings rather than raw talent.
Milwaukee Protected Misiorowski for Exactly This Moment
Pat Murphy had a decision to make while Game 4 was still alive. Jacob Misiorowski was available in the bullpen as the Brewers pushed into extra innings, and a championship was tantalizingly close. Using the ace to protect a narrow lead would have been understandable. But it would also have left Milwaukee without its best planned starter if Tampa Bay managed to force another game. Murphy resisted the temptation. Misiorowski stayed out of the game, and Milwaukee lost in the 12th.
That choice looks painful in hindsight, particularly after rookie Cooper Pratt's go-ahead homer briefly put the Brewers in front. It was also a defensible attempt to manage an entire series rather than one inning. Milwaukee entered the night leading 3–0 and had four possible chances to secure one more victory. Preserving Misiorowski meant retaining a powerful advantage in the very scenario that eventually materialized. The Brewers did not choose to lose Game 4; they chose not to spend a premium starting pitcher on a narrow relief assignment with an uncertain payoff.
The 24-year-old right-hander arrives with the kind of regular-season numbers that can distort expectations: a 1.80 ERA, 252 strikeouts, a 0.80 WHIP and a .157 opponents' batting average. He led the majors in each of those categories. His opening World Series pitch, a 103.5-mph fastball to Yandy Díaz, established a velocity record for the Fall Classic in the pitch-tracking era. He then gave Milwaukee five innings of one-run baseball in Game 1, allowing four hits and striking out three in a 3–2 win.
Those five innings are more instructive than the radar-gun headline. Misiorowski did not overwhelm Tampa Bay with strikeouts as relentlessly as he did many opponents during the summer. The Rays put balls in play, forced him to defend and produced a particularly dangerous swing from Junior Caminero. In one encounter Caminero lined into a double play; in another he ripped a ball at 112.7 mph for a double. Milwaukee still got a winning start because its ace adjusted to the opposition rather than relying on strikeouts alone.
Four days of rest separate Misiorowski's first and second World Series assignments. He has already started the opening games of Milwaukee's three postseason series, and the club has won the first game of each. This is a familiar role for him, but Game 5 offers a different psychological burden. Instead of trying to seize early control, he is being asked to finish a championship that slipped out of Milwaukee's hands. The Brewers will want his fastball to set the tone without allowing the Rays to turn hard contact, walks or aggressive baserunning into another one-run struggle.
The Rays Won an Extra Day — and Spent Almost Every Starter to Get It
Tampa Bay's reward for refusing elimination is an unusually awkward pitching puzzle. Kevin Cash used Griffin Jax to open Game 4, brought in Nick Martinez for two innings and also turned to Ian Seymour. Martinez had started Game 1, while Drew Rasmussen handled Game 2 and Freddy Peralta took Game 3. That means the five pitchers who ended the regular season in the Rays' rotation have all appeared during the previous four nights. There is no obvious conventional Game 5 starter who has enjoyed a normal preparation cycle.
Rasmussen would be coming back on only three days of rest, a difficult request for a pitcher whose health and workload have been managed carefully. Peralta pitched Monday, leaving an even shorter turnaround. Martinez's two-inning relief appearance on Tuesday removed what might otherwise have been the cleanest option. Seymour worked an inning but needed 32 pitches, which complicates an immediate return. Cash may have to embrace a bullpen game, using multiple relievers for short, carefully chosen assignments and treating each inning as a separate matchup.
That approach is not automatically a concession. A well-managed bullpen game can keep opposing hitters from seeing the same pitcher three times, exploit platoon advantages and avoid asking a tired starter to survive a long outing. It also multiplies the number of decisions the manager must get right. One reliever who cannot find the strike zone, one unexpected extra-base hit or one early defensive error can force the next arm into action sooner than planned. When the opponent's starter can cover five or six innings, the cost of those small disruptions becomes enormous.
Cash does have relatively fresh options. Right-hander Cole Sulser and left-handers Steven Matz and Garrett Cleavinger did not pitch in Game 4. Bryan Baker threw 21 pitches across two innings after a long break, though it was his first two-inning outing since 2024. Each name offers a possible piece of the puzzle; none is a substitute for a fully rested, established starter working deep into the game. The question is not merely who takes the ball in the first inning. It is who can take it in the fifth, seventh and ninth if the game stays close.
There is a strategic reason for Tampa Bay to endure that uncertainty. A Game 5 victory would send the series back to Milwaukee after Thursday's off-day, potentially restoring Rasmussen and Peralta as more conventional options for Games 6 and 7. The Rays do not need to invent a four-game comeback all at once. They need to survive Wednesday with whatever combination of pitching, defense and timely hitting is available. Their problem is that the most important bridge in that plan is also the bridge they are least equipped to cross.
Chourio, Pratt and Caminero Make This More Than an Ace-versus-Bullpen Story
The pitching imbalance matters, but Milwaukee's hitters have been creating their own history. Jackson Chourio has ten hits through the first four games of this World Series, matching Babe Ruth's 1928 mark for the most hits over the opening four games. At 22, he has also accumulated 31 postseason hits before his 23rd birthday, surpassing the previous benchmark associated with Andruw Jones. Those are not cosmetic records. They reflect a hitter consistently giving Milwaukee chances to turn ordinary innings into pressure situations.
Then there is Cooper Pratt, whose Game 4 performance should not disappear beneath the story of the walk-off. The rookie collected four hits and launched the 12th-inning home run that briefly appeared to be the championship-winning blow. He had already delivered a pivotal hit in Game 2. His .333 postseason average and .829 OPS underline how much meaningful offense Milwaukee is receiving from a player whose big-league debut came only in June. When a lineup can pair Chourio's volume with Pratt's fearless situational hitting, it does not need every veteran to be spectacular.
Christian Yelich, William Contreras and Brice Turang provide the experienced center of the order. Jake Bauers, Garrett Mitchell and Sal Frelick offer different combinations of contact, speed and power around them. Murphy adjusted the Frelick-Mitchell order for Game 4, so the exact Game 5 batting order should not be treated as confirmed until the teams announce it. The larger point is that Milwaukee can attack Tampa Bay's pieced-together pitching staff from several places, not simply by waiting for one star to produce.
Yet the Rays have their own pressure points. Díaz and Jonathan Aranda can set the table, Caminero supplies the explosive contact, and Chandler Simpson's speed changes what defenders must consider once he reaches base. Simpson collected three hits in Game 4, while Liam Hicks contributed two, including a single in the decisive rally. Jonny DeLuca and Ben Williamson then showed how a series can turn without a home run. Four straight singles against a heavily favored bullpen were enough to create the most important Tampa Bay inning of the season.
For Misiorowski, the dangerous part is not simply Caminero's power. It is the possibility that Tampa Bay's hitters shorten their swings, force pitches into the strike zone and string together baserunners rather than trying to beat triple-digit velocity with one heroic swing. For the Rays' bullpen, the mirror-image threat is Chourio or Pratt starting an inning with a hit and Milwaukee forcing a reliever to work from the stretch immediately. Both offenses have demonstrated that their best opportunities can arise from traffic, not just fireworks.
One-Run Baseball, Exhausted Bullpens and a History Nobody Has Broken
Milwaukee's bullpen is still a reason to favor the Brewers. Trevor Megill needed only five pitches in Game 4, and Abner Uribe threw 19. Both should be capable of returning Wednesday. Aaron Ashby worked 31 pitches to record seven outs, which makes his availability more conditional but not necessarily impossible. The Brewers also benefited from Robert Gasser's six-inning effort in the 10–1 Game 3 victory, which spared several key relievers the workload Tampa Bay has been unable to avoid.
Still, Game 4 exposed how quickly the best relief plan can unravel. Milwaukee used multiple pitchers to keep a tie intact, took the lead in the top of the 12th and then watched a defensive mistake start a rally. The final four singles did not erase everything the bullpen accomplished in the first three games. They did show that no relief corps is immune to sequencing, pressure and the occasional ball that finds grass. Murphy acknowledged that, in hindsight, he wished he had extracted more than one batter from Megill, even while defending the decision he made at the time.
The managerial contrast is fascinating. Murphy has the luxury of choosing when to bring in his top relievers after a genuine ace starts. Cash may need to use some of his best available arms before the late innings, simply to keep the score manageable. If Misiorowski works efficiently, Milwaukee can shorten the game with its established relief hierarchy. If Tampa Bay forces him out early, the Brewers may have to expose more of that bullpen and confront the possibility that the Rays' Game 4 comeback was the beginning of a real change in momentum.
History makes clear how steep the task remains. Tampa Bay is only the fifth team to win World Series Game 4 after losing the first three games. The previous four all lost Game 5. No team has ever forced a Game 6 after opening a World Series down 3–0. The famous 2004 Boston Red Sox overturned a 3–0 deficit in the American League Championship Series, not the World Series. A comeback remains possible because baseball games are not decided by historical frequencies, but the history is a useful reminder that winning one desperate night is not the same as changing the balance of an entire series.
For Milwaukee, one win would deliver the franchise's first championship, removing it from the short list of teams that have never won the World Series. For Tampa Bay, victory would merely buy a trip back to Wisconsin and the chance to start talking about a comeback without sounding entirely fanciful. Game 5 begins Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern at Tropicana Field. The Brewers have the ace, the healthier pitching map and the 3–1 lead. The Rays have the home crowd, a burst of belief and no margin for error. That is enough to make the game compelling, even if it does not make the teams equally positioned.
The Brewers did not squander their entire advantage when Ben Williamson ended Game 4. They lost one opportunity to finish the World Series and preserved Jacob Misiorowski for the next one. Tampa Bay gained a night of life but paid for it with innings from pitchers it would dearly like to have fresh now. That is the trade-off Game 5 will test.
If Misiorowski supplies another disciplined start and Milwaukee's late-inning arms return to form, the Brewers can finish a historic season without another detour. If the Rays make him work, force the Brewers into uncomfortable bullpen choices and turn a few singles into runs, the pressure may travel back to Milwaukee. Nothing about a 3–1 deficit is friendly. But after Tuesday, nobody should confuse the favorite with a guaranteed winner.
