It's finally here. The Milwaukee Brewers are facing off with the Tampa Bay Rays tonight in their first World Series game since 1982, and the energy in the city is palpable. After leading the league in regular-season victories with 103, the Brewers scrapped and clawed through a tough NLDS matchup with the San Diego Padres before sweeping their postseason rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, to claim their first National League pennant in franchise history.
Now, they face a Tampa Bay Rays team that spent most of the season atop the American League with a similar philosophy to the Brewers'. Naturally, nerves are beginning to settle in, but that shouldn't stop Milwaukee from bringing its A-Game to Game 1 on Friday night.
So long as they play to their strengths and follow these three key objectives, they should be able to start the series with a resounding victory at home.
1. The Brewers cannot let the bright lights of the World Series distract them from playing their own style of baseball.
Patient. Methodical. Analytical. And when the time is right, explosive. That's how the Milwaukee Brewers win games — not by swinging at every pitch or overextending their pitchers to try and squeak out a win. It'd be easy to let the excitement of the moment overtake them, but the Brewers won't win games that way. They learned that the hard way in the Division Series against San Diego.
Tampa Bay will try its best to get the Brewers to play outside of their comfort zone. But it's up to manager Pat Murphy to keep his team on course and follow the game plan that got them here in the first place. Otherwise, they'll practically be handing the game to the Rays.
2. The bottom of the Brewers' batting order needs to outshine the bottom of Tampa Bay's rotation.
There's no denying that both of these teams have some serious talent at the top of the batting order, but these games may very well be decided by who steps up at the bottom of the rotation, and in theory, that's a major advantage for the Brewers. If they follow the pattern of the postseason, we can expect to see a healthy dose of Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick, and some combination of Joey Ortiz, David Hamilton, Luis Lara, and the list goes on.
Tampa Bay, on the flip side, has struggled to get consistent offensive production out of that section of their batting order. The likes of Richie Palacios, Taylor Walls and Ben Williamson, while talented defensively, have struggled to find their footing at times this season at the plate. If the back end of the Brewers' rotation can figure it out, it'll be well worth the investments they made all season long.
3. There's no better time for Jacob Misiorowski to deliver for Milwaukee than the World Series.
In only his second year as a full-time starter, Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski has written his name throughout the MLB record books. But if he wants to truly begin writing his legacy in this game, this is where he needs to show up most.
Milwaukee had an 18-5 record in the games that Misiorowski pitched this season, including postseason wins against both San Diego and Los Angeles. The 24-year-old is undoubtedly one of the greatest pitching talents on planet Earth, but this is also the biggest game of his life. If he can rise to the occasion and play to the level that we expect of him, the likelihood that the Brewers bring home their first World Series in franchise history will explode, and so will the excitement of the fanbase.
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