He follows one major league team on Instagram: The Dodgers.
And while people familiar with his situation insist he hasn’t made a decision, the widespread expectation around the industry is that 18-year-old Shoki Oda of Japan will end up with the Dodgers.
If Oda sticks to the plan he unveiled earlier this month, the hard-throwing right-hander will do something no Japanese superstar before him has ever done by moving to the United States without first playing in Nippon Professional Baseball.
The Japanese establishment is viewing the potential development as an existential threat to its domestic league, as no prospect of Oda’s caliber has ever signed with a major league organization as an amateur.
Shoki Oda of Team Japan throws in the second inning during the BFA U18 Asian Baseball Championship Super Round game. Getty Images
What would NPB be without such players?
Daisuke Matsuzaka played in the league.
So did Yu Darvish.
And Shohei Ohtani.
And Roki Sasaki.
In the case of Ohtani, he was close to signing with the Dodgers out of high school as a pitcher, only to be drafted by the Nippon-Ham Fighters, who talked him into signing with them by offering him a chance to be a two-way player.
The Yomiuri Giants used their first-round selection in the recent NPB draft on Oda, perhaps thinking they could similarly change the mind of the Yokohama High product.
With 22 Japan Series titles, the Giants are the most successful team in NPB history. Their new manager is Hideki Matsui, one of the most popular players in Japanese baseball history.
But in reality, their efforts to convince Oda to stay in the country have the feel of a symbolic last stand.
Something like this was bound to happen.
Shoki Oda of Team Japan throws in the first inning during the BFA U18 Asian Baseball Championship Super Round game. Getty Images
The Dodgers have achieved their goal of “painting Japan blue,” as the triumphs of Ohtani, Sasaki and Yoshinobu Yamamoto have made them the country’s favorite major league team.
But this goes beyond that.
Over the last three decades, Japan has gone from treating Hideo Nomo as if he was a traitor for joining the Dodgers to wanting to see its best players compete in the world’s top league.
“I want to play in the No. 1 (league) in the world,” Oda told reporters. “I want to be No. 1 in the world.”
He isn’t alone.
Last month, the San Diego Padres signed right-hander Tatsuya Nogami directly out of Osaka Sangyo University.
This summer, Rintaro Sasaki chose to sign with the Miami Marlins instead of the SoftBank Hawks. The decision marked Sasaki’s second time rejecting NPB’s overtures. When Sasaki graduated from Hanamaki Higashi High – also the alma mater of Ohtani and the Angels’ Yusei Kikuchi – he skipped the NPB draft and enrolled at Stanford.
What distinguished Oda’s situation from theirs was that Oda was considered an entirely different class of prospect. Oda was part of the same powerhouse program that developed Matsuzaka. He threw a 97-mph fastball that was the fastest pitch ever recorded at Japan’s national high school baseball tournament, which earned him comparisons to Sasaki.
Shoki Oda after finishing the third inning during the BFA U18 Asian Baseball Championship Super Round game. Getty Images
There are clear benefits to signing with a major league organization as an amateur.
In NPB, nine years of service time is required to become an international free agent. Players who aren’t international free agents have to be posted by their NPB teams to move to the major leagues. The SoftBank Hawks have a policy against posting their players. Other organizations, such as the Giants, very rarely make their players available to major league teams.
Finances are also a factor. Bonuses for NPB draft picks are capped at 100 million yen, or about $640,000.
Major league teams are assigned bonus pools to sign international amateurs, and they are free to allocate as much of that as they want to any one player. The Dodgers’ bonus pool was $7.2 million last year. One major league talent scout estimated that Oda could receive a signing bonus of anywhere from $3 million to $5 million.
Shoki Oda after finishing the third inning during the BFA U18 Asian Baseball Championship Super Round game. Getty Images
Oda’s anticipated move to the U.S. will be complicated by baseball’s upcoming labor stoppage.
The international player acquisition system is collectively bargained, and baseball’s current collective-bargaining agreement will expire on Dec. 1, at which point franchise owners will lock out the players.
Oda would not be able to sign until a new CBA is ratified.
Perhaps that’s what the Yomiuri Giants are counting on. Perhaps they think an extended lockout will wear on Oda.
Long term, it won’t make a difference.
Because if Oda doesn’t sign with the Dodgers or some other major league team, the next Oda will.
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA - APRIL 27: JJ Wetherholt #26, Masyn Winn #0 and Jordan Walker #18 of the St. Louis Cardinals celebrate the team's 4-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park on April 27, 2026 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Nick Cammett/Diamond Images via Getty Images) | Diamond Images/Getty Images
The World Series is making its way South with the midwest avian population but my sports focus somehow still centers around the St. Louis Cardinals and football, both fantasy and NFL. Nothing against the Brewers, Rays, or the game of baseball, since I do think this Fall Classic is going to be as fun as it gets without having a team in the race.
Even without much happening around the Cardinals, you are all here with us and ready to jump in with your thoughts and feelings around the organization. Chaim Bloom does not tip his hand too often, so trying to predict the actual path he will take this offseason is difficult. He does do well to taper our expectations, saying things in a way that keeps us from hoping for big spending in free agency. I do think this allows us to pencil in much of the 26-man roster, outside of speculating a couple trades here and there.
Assuming that Bloom will leave much of the offense and starting rotation untouched, I wanted to take a look at how these guys should be expected to perform next season. In the most recent VEB and articles pods, I stated a couple times how 77 wins is now the baseline for success in my mind while also understanding the win column does not tell the whole story. Because I expect minimal changes, unfortunately, I could see next season’s record sitting near what we saw in 2026 since the team outperformed most preseason win totals.
Cardinals key contributors have to take another step forward in 2027 season
To get in front of it, I do not expect the Cardinals to trade Ivan Herrera or Leo Bernal this winter, or move on from Masyn Winn for someone who can provide more offense. I foresee Joshua Baez getting I have more than 50% confidence that Nathan Church will be starting in center on Opening Day and I will give a slight edge to Blaze Jordan over Thomas Saggese at third. I think Saggese can (and should?) take Jose Fermin’s role of “super utility guy who somehow starts too many games” to take advantage of his full skillset. However, my confidence in either of those spots being locked up already is low, so I will not figure them into my 2027 thoughts just yet.
This leaves me providing my way too early expectations for JJ Wetherholt, Jordan Walker, Alec Burleson, Ivan Herrera, Leo Bernal, Joshua Baez, and Masyn Winn.
Tier 1: Trustworthy
Wetherholt, Burleson, Herrera
The first two names probably come as no surprise but adding Herrera to the trustworthy list may be a slight shock. The 2025 season was supposed to be a stepping stone for Herrera, but too much time behind the plate and a huge workload may have prevented that leap forward. Even with a slightly disappointing campaign, the hopefully full-time DH was still an above-average bat who can produce runs in different ways.
Assuming that Wetherholt and Herrera bounce back into full health for 2027, this past year may actually be the baseline for both of these players. I am hopeful that the Cardinals staff limits the amount of times a player is in the lineup despite injury, even if they are not at risk for additional damage. Any discomfort can cause a change in mechanics, limiting consistency and potentially creating bad habits. That could have been the case for these two in the dog days of the season, but I think this duo and Burleson will create a scary top of the lineup.
Burly has improved every season of his career and after leading all of MLB in RBIs last year, I am still hopeful for another jump. As he continues to prove his value with the glove at first base, I am holding out for multiple seasons of 30+ homers and a .270 or better batting average before his time in St. Louis is up. The first baseman is a proven clubhouse veteran who still has plenty of time left in his prime to continue to make his mark on the organization and be the grizzled voice for the next contending Cardinals team.
Tier 2: Do it again
Walker and Bernal
A lot was said about Walker’s second half and I hate to use it as an excuse, but he was another player who was playing through discomfort for little or no reason. With the Cardinals out of it, Walker continued playing near everyday as he looked to end his breakout campaign with a 30 homer season and a 3.0 fWAR or better. The injury was said to not have long-term effect on the outfielder, but we saw him fall back into bad habits in September. The All-Star actually hit .305 in August, despite participating in the Home Run Derby, but his final month average dipped to .172, which made his overall second-half stat line look worse than it truly was.
Walker was able to continue to have success on the bases in the final few months of the year, still swiping nine bases to get him into the 20/20 club. Assuming the time off from the daily grind will allow Walker’s hip to get back to full health, the 2027 season will be another big one for him. Baseball card numbers aside, if Walker could put up another 20% or better than league-average season, he will slide into Tier 1 before next season ends.
Moving to Bernal, he could have fit into either of the final two tiers but his debut was so impressive I had to keep him above the last one. My hope is that the switch-hitter plays in 130 games at the big league level next season, which would mean the Cardinals made a catching decision elsewhere on the roster and Bernal was able to stick around for a full major league season. In just 24 games, Bernal hit .284 with a 124 wRC+ but he also saw regression in his plate discipline and defense.
The second part would have been enough to put him into Tier 3, but he looked so darn good at the plate that asking for more from a rookie catcher felt unfair. I believe that the glove will be just fine for the two year fielding award winner in the minors as he gets more comfortable with major league hitters in the box and adjusts to the pitching staff’s stuff. Bernal will play most of the season as a 23-year-old in 2027 and I believe he could be an early leader for Rookie of the Year if he can repeat his offense over a full year while playing a premium position.
Tier 3: Show me more
Winn and Baez
Jumping to Baez first, he showed plenty at the plate in a handful more games that Bernal but falls a tier below the catcher. The left fielder’s .510 slugging percentage was a welcomed addition to the lineup, especially after finally putting an end to the revolving door of players at that spot before his debut. Before going down with an oblique injury that coincidentally ended his season without the Cardinals having to make a playing time decision, Baez hit seven homers, seven doubles, and stole two bags to put his season totals to 41, 29, and 23 respectively. If Joshua Baez could just do it again while at the major league level, we would be in a great spot in St. Louis.
While the 17 homer jump from 2025 is an amazing feat, Baez also saw his K-rate jump back towards the concerning numbers that made him tumble down prospect lists before his resurgence. He also saw his overall average drop about 40 points from his prior year, but that could be easily explained by the outfielder playing at two higher levels than he did in 2025. The main reasons I threw Baez into Tier 3 are his plate discipline, both with contact and patience, and his fielding. I am not asking him to change his overall approach in the box, but a little more bat on ball is a decent sacrifice if it means 35 homers instead of 40. In the grass, he put up a -2 Statcast run value in 24 games on defense and looked awkward tracking down the ball. I will hope his route running improves as he spends more time in just one outfield spot.
Speaking of defense, Masyn Winn does not have anything else to prove at shortstop to make me believe he is a major league capable defender. In order to get me back in on him as an everyday player for at least the next five seasons, though, I have to see a big jump with the bat. Another player that ends up in the lineup despite being nicked up on an annual basis, there has always been something to point to for why the shortstop’s bat has not progressed to the levels we saw in the minors. Even with the injuries, Winn’s metrics have not changed much since his rookie season, so I have started to become more pessimistic on his offensive future.
Chaim Bloom recently spoke to Jesus Baez being more than capable of handling shortstop and the prospect’s offensive skillset is more intriguing than Winn’s was in the minors. The title of this tier was originally Last Chance and only had Winn in it, but he is still just 24-years-old and I cannot let myself be all the way out on a player I had so much positivity around. I am officially out on my 20/20 prediction, but I am not out on his ability to be a .270 or better hitter since he was able do that in the upper levels of the minors and nearly reached that number as a rookie. If Winn does not hit to a 90 wRC+ or higher, I am not saying it is time to send him packing, but I would definitely be more hesitant to loosen the pursestrings to keep him in St. Louis beyond his rookie deal.
Let me know if you would place any of these guys in other spots, although these are my own tiers that are titled in a way to fit my storylines. Feel free to also predict what you think will happen with Nathan Church or third base. Lastly, in case you missed it, I had an interview with Cardinals pitching prospect Michael Watson that was tons of fun. Kareem was also on the pod and it was a ton of fun to dig into the year at Springfield at the talent on that roster. I linked that below for your viewing and/or listening pleasure. Thanks as always!
MILWAUKEE, WI - OCTOBER 24: Freddy Peralta #51 of the Tampa Bay Rays looks on from the dugout during Game Two of the 2026 World Series presented by Capital One between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field on Saturday, October 24, 2026 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
Speaking of one such pending free agent, Freddy Peralta was once again asked about the approach both the Mets and Rays took with him and pushed back against the notion that the teams tried to get him to make the same fixes, calling their strategies “a little different.” When (again) asked why things didn’t work out with the Mets, Peralta said, “Sometimes, I ask the same question myself.”
Mets prospect Boston Baro connected for a home run on Thursday in the Arizona Fall League for the first time in a game environment since July 27, 2025, as he tries to come back from his various injuries stronger and with more pop in his bat.
Around the National League East
MLB Trade Rumors compiled notes from around the NL East, including Joel Sherman’s reporting that Pat Murphy was a finalist for the Mets’ managerial search in 2019, the Marlins’ philosophy if they have to spend more money to reach a hypothetical salary floor, the progress of Phillies’ infield prospect Aidan Miller, and more.
The Brewers rallied from behind after going down four runs in the first inning to complete a thrilling 5-4 Game 2 comeback win against the Rays last night to go ahead 2-0 in the World Series. Sal Frelick hit a game-tying homer in the sixth and rookie Cooper Pratt laced an opposite-field RBI single in the seventh to put the Brewers ahead.
William Contreras is becoming a superstar this October, writes Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
Brewers closer Trevor Megill spoke to Tyler Kepner of The Athletic about having to grind out an extra out after replay review overturned what would have been a game-inning double play in the ninth inning of Game 1.
October 25 is perhaps the single most important date in Mets history because it was on this date in 1986 that the Mets played the most famous game in franchise history, where a ball dribbled between Bill Buckner’s legs to complete a miraculous victory and set the table for Game 7.
ARLINGTON, TX - SEPTEMBER 17: Jarren Duran #16 of the Boston Red Sox looks on in the dugout during the game between the Boston Red Sox and the Texas Rangers at Globe Life Field on Thursday, September 17, 2026 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Courtney Kramer/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
Yet another piece of corroborating evidence for the “everything is about us all the time even when it’s not” theory! The biggest play in last night’s World Series game was so Massachusetts coded that it could’ve been settled via a fist fight over a space-saver in Southie rather than in the batters box, as Lexington’s Sal Frelick homered off of Westborough’s Ian Seymour to tie the game in the sixth. Things could get awkward when they reunite for offseason training back home in Waltham in a few weeks time. Hopefully Frelick does the gentlemanly thing and brings Seymour a peace offering in the form of a Dunkin iced. (Peter Abraham, Boston Globe)
And if that’s not enough of a local connection for you, how about this? Both Andy Freed and Jeff Levering, the principal radio play-by-play voices for the Rays and Brewers respectively, worked in the Pawtucket Red Sox broadcast booth before getting the call to the bigs. (Alex Speier, Boston Globe)
Of course there’s another broadcasting newbie working the World Series this year: Payton Tolle, who has been serving as a correspondent covering the important issues, like what’s on the menu in the parking lot at Brewers’ tailgate parties. He also took some time out to answer fan questions online. Here are some of the highlights, including further confirmation of my “all mustaches lead back to Tom Selleck” theory. It’s been a good World Series for my theories. (Max Ralph, MLB.com)
If we really want a World Series with local connections, though, nothing would be better than the Red Sox actually making it back to the World Series. So what lessons can the Sox take from the Rays and Brewers? (Sean McAdam, MassLive)
Thankfully, one lesson the Sox don’t need to learn is how to put together a stellar defensive outfield. Both Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu took home the Fielding Bible Award for their respective positions. This is particularly notable because these awards combine the American and National Leagues, meaning Ceddy took down Platinum Glove favorite Pete Crowe-Armstrong for the center field nod — though he needed a tiebreaker to do so as they actually tied mathematically. (Shanthi Sepe-Chupuru, MLB.com)
Will Jarren Duran be a part of that outfield in 2027? Duran is still arbitration eligible. And while his 2026 production was so poor that many are wondering whether he’ll be non-tendered, that’s unlikely. However, “it’s widely expected that the Red Sox will look to deal him this winter,” writes one insider. (Sean McAdam, MassLive)
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 04: Josue De Paula #95 of the Los Angeles Dodgers in action at bat against the Atlanta Braves in game two of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium on October 04, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Nothing beats Father Time, and that includes an aging Dodgers core.
Seven out of the nine regulars within the Dodgers lineup are on the wrong side of 30, with Andy Pages being the only regular under the age of 27. Players such as Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy are both entering the twilight of their careers, and Mookie Betts will turn 35 years of age during the 2027 season.
The Dodgers have plenty of prospects waiting for their chance to shine at the game’s highest level, and outfielder Josue De Paula is the cream of the crop of young talent. The team is hoping to increase his playing time in the outfield as opposed to his fill-in at designated hitter this past season, and that could mean a change of scenery for an aging player such as Teoscar Hernández, per Sonja Chen of MLB.com.
If De Paula can turn himself into a viable everyday left fielder, it could bring about some of the greatest change in what could be a transitional offseason for a Dodgers roster looking to get younger. De Paula’s rise would at the very least reduce Teoscar Hernández to a more limited role, and at most prompt the team to find a trade partner for the veteran outfielder.
Dodgers owner Mark Walter is a controversial name within the Los Angeles sports world, and Major League Baseball is now monitoring him amid a federal probe, notes Valentina Martinez of the California Post. Walter briefly became owner of the Los Angeles Lakers until he sold the team to both Josh Kushner and Bob Iger for a record $12.5 billion.
“As always when we have an investigation, external law enforcement, whatever, we monitor that and that’s where we are right now,” Manfred told reporters.
Larry Holder of The Athletic writes about pro wrestler Arik Cannon, who was lucky to find a one-of-one Shohei Ohtani “Game for the Ages” card. Cannon hopes to sell the card in the hopes of paying off his father’s debts.
“In August 2023, we lost my mom to cancer, and it’s been really, really rough on my dad,” Cannon said. “So the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going pay off all his debt. And then I don’t know what my other options are at, but it’ll be more than enough to take care of him. Whatever’s left over for me, I’m probably just going to put it away and make sure that I don’t become one of those cliché Powerball winners that had money and now it’s gone.”
DENVER, CO - SEPTEMBER 19: Jose Quintana #62 of the Colorado Rockies pitches during the game between the Seattle Mariners and the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field on Saturday, September 19, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Ray Bahner/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
The Colorado Rockies are dormant as two teams they may look to model their game off of—the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Devil Rays—do battle on the grandest stage Major League Baseball has to offer. The World Series is underway and two teams with smaller payrolls that excel in pitching, small ball, and analytics are both aiming to walk away with their first championship in franchise history.
While the team itself may be dormant—as fans wait for next steps in the rebuild following the firing of Alon Leichman and a looming lockout—that doesn’t mean the players are.
Down in Scottsdale, Arizona, eight Rockies prospects and farm hands are taking part in the Arizona Fall League as part of the Salt River Rafters team. The Rockies’ standout star in Scottsdale isn’t one of their top prospects, though. It’s Jack O’Dowd, a 25-year-old undrafted catcher and infielder who played college ball at the University of Texas. O’Dowd (HM PuRP) was playing independent baseball in the Pioneer League a year ago, but joined the Rockies as a minor league free agent this year and quickly rocketed up the system after starting in Low-A Fresno and ending the season with Double-A Hartford.
Meanwhile, although it’s only October, Winter League baseball has already started in other parts of the World. The Mexican, Venezuelan, and Dominican Winter Leagues have already been playing for a week, while Puerto Rico’s Winter League will start in November.
There are surprisingly few players coming out of the Rockies’ 2026 season playing ball this winter so far, though three prospects are working on building their résumés. Infielder Roynier Hernanzes (no. 29 PuRP) and catcher Bryant Betancourt (HM PuRP) are both playing in Venezuela, while top prospect second baseman and center fielder Roldy Brito (no. 3 PuRP) is playing in his native Dominican Republic.
Farmhands in outfielder Drew Avans and right-handed reliever Patrick Weigel—both of whom spent their 2026 season with the Triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes—are playing international baseball as well. Avans is playing in Mexico while Weigel is playing in the Dominican Republic.
Also playing in the Dominican Winter League is left-handed veteran José Quintana. Having missed most of the 2026 season due to an elbow injury after signing with the Rockies as a free agent, Quintana is working to build himself back up in order to get back to Major League Baseball in 2027.
With that being said, here’s what our staff here at Purple Row had to say this week:
A little disappointed that Drew Rasmussen was given an extra day instead of facing the Miz, but Nick Martinez did a very good job and led to an enjoyable pitchers duel Friday night.
It’s just hard to imagine the Cubs closing the gap between them and the Brewers in one off-season. Just hope it’s not another trip through mediocrity. Think positive — or pray for Jed Hoyer to have the best off-season in the league.
I appreciate your reading.
*means autoplay on, (directions to remove for Firefox and Chrome). {$} means paywall. {$} means limited views. Italics are often used on this page as sarcasm font. The powers that be have enabled real sarcasm font in the comments.
Tyler Courtney (LastWordOnSports): Revisiting the 2026 Cubs Trade Deadline. “It’s easy to hate on moves after they happen, but it’s necessary to review how they will affect the team’s future.”
Koko Taylor (born Cora Ann Walton, September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009) was an American singer whose style encompassed Chicago blues, electric blues, rhythm and blues, and soul blues. Sometimes called “The Queen of the Blues”, she was known for her rough, powerful vocals. Born on a farm near Memphis, Tennessee, Taylor was the daughter of a sharecropper. She left Tennessee for Chicago in 1952 with her husband, Robert “Pops” Taylor, a truck driver. In the late 1950s, she began singing in blues clubs in Chicago. She was spotted by Willie Dixon in 1962, and this led to more opportunities for performing and her first recordings. In 1964 Dixon brought Taylor to Checker Records, a subsidiary label of Chess Records, for which she recorded “Wang Dang Doodle“, a song written by Dixon and recorded by Howlin’ Wolf five years earlier. The record became a hit, reaching number four on the R&B chart and number 58 on the pop chart in 1966, and selling a million copies.
She recorded several versions of the song over the years, including a live rendition at the 1967 American Folk Blues Festival, with the harmonica player Little Walter and the guitarist Hound Dog Taylor. Taylor became better known by touring in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and she became accessible to a wider record-buying public when she signed a recording contract with Alligator Records in 1975. She recorded nine albums for Alligator, eight of which were nominated for Grammy awards, and came to dominate ranks of female blues singers, winning twenty-nine W. C. Handy/Blues Music Awards. Bonnie Raitt, Shemekia Copeland, Janis Joplin, Shannon Curfman, and Susan Tedeschi cite Taylor as an influence on their styles.
In her later years, Taylor performed over 70 concerts a year and resided just south of Chicago, in Country Club Hills, Illinois. Taylor’s final performance was at the Blues Music Awards, on May 7, 2009. She suffered complications from surgery for gastrointestinal bleeding on May 19 and died on June 3.
Please be reminded that Cub Tracks and Bleed Cubbie Blue do not necessarily endorse the content of articles, podcasts, or videos that are linked to in this series.
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND - SEPTEMBER 23: Gunnar Henderson #2 of the Baltimore Orioles prepares to catch a pop up during game one of a baseball doubleheader against the Toronto Blue Jays at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on September 23, 2026 in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Hello, friends.
There are 150 days remaining until the next scheduled Orioles game. There are probably something like 110 days before we will actually know whether an Orioles game or any other game will be played on that day.
They won’t be playing a World Series game today. It’s an off day as the series travels from Milwaukee to Tampa, or more accurately St. Petersburg. Game 3 will be played tomorrow. If you were watching Game 2 last night, you certainly got your fill of the excitement from the get-go, with the Rays taking a 4-0 lead in the first inning that they gradually squandered by the sixth inning. Former Oriole Tyler Wells was involved in the Rays falling behind in the seventh.
I had to put the Bird Droppings to bed before the game ended, so maybe there was even more excitement and the Rays came back and tied up the series, or maybe the Brewers held on to take a 2-0 lead. You probably already knew before looking in here. Either way, do you think that this series will end in Florida, or will it end up going back to Wisconsin?
One thing is certain: The World Series will be over within a week, and after that, there will be a race to the end of November before the lockout hits. Will teams be looking to strike early, thinking that it will be better to head into the lockout with more certainty, or will they generally think that it’s better to try to pounce in whatever chaotic period occurs between a new Collective Bargaining Agreement and the start of the 2027 season?
Up until last season, Mike Elias had been a “wait until later” kind of guy. He did some early strikes last offseason, including the trade for Taylor Ward and the signing of Ryan Helsley. Pete Alonso getting signed was also fairly early in the offseason, though since it was in December, that same date this year will be lockout central. The only thing that I feel confident in predicting about Elias is that he’s going to do something weird. This doesn’t always equate to failure.
The Orioles definitely have a shopping list to get through this offseason, but they’ve got some stuff to figure out internally too. One of the bigger projects that they are going to need to accomplish is going to be to get Gunnar Henderson looking like his MVP-caliber self from 2024 again. Pairing that level of player with Pete Alonso would be a huge! I don’t know whether new general manager Jared Banner is going to have any better ideas than anyone who was around last year did. As you’ll see below, Henderson still has his believers with the Orioles – not like they have much choice.
Orioles stuff you might have missed
We are into the time of year where there aren’t many new stories, so if you have been diligently reading Bird Droppings, you may have already seen these.
Can Jared Banner fix the Orioles? Here’s what his mentors said. (The Baltimore Banner) We’ve all been burned with similar-sounding praise for manager Craig Albernaz a year ago, so I get it if you don’t put much stock in this. People who would know are nonetheless quite positive about the new GM hire.
Rising prospect Ethan Anderson wrapped strong season with stellar homecoming (Orioles.com) The catching prospect, who went to high school in Virginia Beach, played the final week of the season with Triple-A Norfolk. His results at Double-A offered a nice sign that maybe not everyone from the top of the Orioles 2024 draft class is cursed.
Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries
Nothing of particular import has happened to the Orioles on October 25. It is unlikely to change until some day that they actually make the World Series again.
There are a pair of former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 1983/1988 outfielder Tito Landrum, and 1960 three-gamer Bobby Thomson.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: composer Johann Strauss (1825), composer Georges Bizet (1838), baseball Hall of Famer Pedro Martínez (1971), author Zadie Smith (1975), singer-songwriter Katy Perry (1984), singer-songwriter Ciara (1985), and gold medal figure skater Victor Zhou (2000).
On this day in history…
In 1415, England’s Henry V scored a victory in the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years’ War, utilizing his longbows to defeat a numerically superior French force. Shakespeare wrote a famous speech set before the battle.
In 1812, notable Marylander Stephen Decatur – born on the Eastern Shore – led the USS United States in capturing a British warship, HMS Macedonian. Decatur eventually returned the prize to American waters, the first time an American naval vessel had brought a British warship back to an American harbor.
In 1917, according to the Old Style calendar then used in Russia, today marked the start of the October Revolution, the coup that brought the Bolsheviks to power in the country.
**
And that’s the way it is in Birdland on October 25. Have a safe Sunday.
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Freddy Peralta works out before Game 2 of the World Series in Milwaukee on Saturday. Peralta is set to pitch in Game 3 on Monday. (Kayla Wolf / Associated Press)
In retrospect, conventional wisdom might not be all that wise. Just check out this postseason.
The Atlanta Braves should have started Chris Sale in Game 2 of the division series against the Dodgers. They didn’t. They won.
The Braves then had an edge with Sale starting Game 3. They didn’t. They lost that game, and they were eliminated in the next game.
The Milwaukee Brewers should have considered trading rookie pitcher Logan Henderson in a package for Tarik Skubal, a win-now proposition for a team that has dominated the regular season but had not appeared in the World Series in 44 years. They didn’t. Skubal and the Dodgers missed the World Series, and Henderson started Game 2 for the Brewers on Saturday, helping them move within two victories from their first championship.
That brings us to Freddy Peralta, who starts Game 3 for the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday. Peralta was one of the top pitchers in the majors for the Brewers last year, and he has been one of the top pitchers in the majors since the Rays acquired him from the New York Mets three months ago, but in between he performed so poorly for the Mets that he cannot really explain why.
“Sometimes I ask the same question myself,” Peralta said.
So poorly that, when the league’s website ranked the most impactful trades at the deadline, the Peralta deal did not make the top 10, behind trades for six other starting pitchers: Skubal, Casey Mize and Robbie Ray to the San Diego Padres, Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes to the Chicago Cubs, and Jose Soriano to the Toronto Blue Jays.
Conventional wisdom? No big deal.
For the Mets, Peralta put up a 4.99 ERA and a negative WAR. For the Rays, he put up an 0.79 ERA in his last six starts of the regular season and a 1.07 ERA so far in the postseason, honored as American League Championship Series MVP.
“I feel like he’s kind of come back to being Freddy Peralta with us,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.
Peralta went 17-6 with a 2.70 earned-run average for Milwaukee last year, leading the National League in victories and posting 5.5 WAR, third behind Cristopher Sanchez of the Philadelphia Phillies and Cy Young winner Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
If you wonder why the Brewers would trade Peralta, well, you don’t know the Brewers.
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Freddy Peralta throws against the Cleveland Guardians in Game 6 of the ALCS on Oct. 19. (Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press)
Peralta was approaching free agency, and the Brewers routinely trade All-Star pitchers like that for prospects: Corbin Burnes, Josh Hader, Devin Williams.
This is how the Brewers restock: The Burnes trade brought two pieces of this World Series team, pitcher DL Hall and infielder Joey Ortiz. The Hader trade brought Game 3 starter Robert Gasser and journeyman outfielder Estuery Ruiz, and within a subsequent three-team trade, the Brewers swiped All-Star catcher William Contreras for Ruiz.
The Mets wanted Peralta for what they considered an inevitable playoff run, with the largest Opening Day payroll of any major league team, the Dodgers included. The Mets finished in last place, and Peralta’s ERA exceeded 6.00 in each of the two months preceding the trade deadline.
“I was feeling bad,” Peralta said, “because I couldn’t do anything.”
The adjustments the Mets asked him to make, he said, were “a little different” than the ones that reversed the course of his season with the Rays.
The Rays let him pitch from the stretch, as he had in Milwaukee. They modified his delivery, including having him start it from the third-base side of the pitching rubber. His fastball got faster: 94 mph with the Mets, hitting 97 mph in the playoffs.
“We see that he’s in his element, man,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “That’s Fastball Freddy.”
In Milwaukee, it’s all love for Peralta. The fans even cheered his bullpen session there before Game 1.
He’ll start Game 3 in Tampa Bay and, after that, who knows, but he would be lined up to start a potential Game 7 in Milwaukee.
“I know how special it is to pitch on this mound here in Milwaukee,” Peralta said. “I would like to pitch here during the postseason.”
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Freddy Peralta celebrates during Game 2 of the ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians on Oct. 13. (David J. Phillip / Associated Press)
He would have liked to pitch in New York during the postseason too.
“They had a lot of big expectations for me, the fans too, in New York,” he said. “They were waiting for something great from me.”
Conventional wisdom can boomerang. The conventional wisdom on Peralta’s free agency in the spring: he should make more in free agency than any pitcher besides Skubal; in the summer: this is a bad year to take into free agency; in the fall: he should make more in free agency than any pitcher besides Skubal.
But, given what happened in New York, what were the realistic expectations in Tampa Bay?
“I was able to go to a new team that probably needed me for …” Peralta said, his voice trailing off.
ATLANTA, GA - OCTOBER 01: Justin Crawford #2 of the Philadelphia Phillies enters the dugout prior to Game Three of the National League Wild Card Series presented by AbbVie between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park on Thursday, October 1, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
I find myself becoming a crotchety old man watching baseball these days, so seeing these two teams in the World Series makes me happy. I am especially enamored with watching Chandler Simpson….yet I can’t really stand Justin Crawford, a Simpson lite type of player.
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - OCTOBER 23: A general view inside the stadium prior to game one of the 2026 World Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field on October 23, 2026 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Game 2 of the World Series started off with a bang, the Rays jumping out to a 4-0 lead and threatening to tie this thing back up with their ace Drew Rasmussen on the mound. The Brewers had other plans though, and did what they’ve done all postseason long — chip away at any deficit, flip it into a lead and shut down the opposition’s chances to get anything else going. Lo and behold, it worked again and Milwaukee is heading out of town with a 2-0 lead hoping that their next flight back home will be with a trophy in tow. The Rays have certainly threatened in this Fall Classic so it won’t be a cakewalk, especially going into Tropicana Field where they’ve had the best home record in baseball, but the Brew Crew have to like their odds.
It’ll be a busy day here as we close out the weekend, and Matt has contributed heavily to the cause today: he’ll lead off with an extended look at how Game 2 went down last night before covering his own exploits avenging the Yankees’ dismal results by wrecking havoc in some MLB The Show sims, and then rounding it all out with a look at Bobby Brown’s incredible career as a baseball player and a cardiologist. Estevao takes a look at which contract the Yankees would blip out of existence from their current roster if they could, and John ends the day with the weekly social media spotlight.
Today’s Playoff Matchup:
Off-day
Questions/Prompts:
1. Was stealing Game 2 back after falling behind 4-0 in the Rasmussen start a dagger for Milwaukee, or do you expect the Rays to claw their way back into this series?
2. How will Fastball Freddy fare in his World Series debut against his former team?
St. Petersburg, FL: New York Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake watches as New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole warm-ups in the bullpen session as the New York Yankees practice before the ALDS at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida on Oct 2, 2026. (Photo by William Perlman/Newsday RM via Getty Images) | Newsday via Getty Images
MLB Trade Rumors | Charlie Wright: As my colleague Madison covered in detail yesterday, the Yankees finalized a three-year extension for pitching coach Matt Blake, keeping probably the most important member of their coaching staff in the fold. The Yankees pitching staff boasted the best ERA in the league (3.23), and that has as much to do with Blake’s work with star and presumptive AL Cy Young Cam Schlittler as it has to do with his well-known talent for converting pitchers they acquire into impact relievers, Brent Headrick and Paul Blackburn the foremost examples this season. With Blake continuing in his role and last year’s reunion with assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel, the Yankees’ pitching development factory looks to be in good hands for the near future.
The Big Lead | J.P Hoornstra: The Yankees may have succeeded in retaining Blake, but they lost another influential voice in their pitching room. Spencer Medick, pitching coach for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, has agreed to join the Astros as their new major league director of pitching. It’s a huge promotion for a minor league pitching coach and one that is well deserved given how well Yankees prospects at that level pitched in 2026. Medick helped implement the organization-wide pitching philosophy at the level closest to the majors, and it is no surprise that the Yankees minor league affiliates lapped the field when it came to K-BB%, one of the best publicly available predictive stats for future performance.
SNY | Phillip Martinez: The Yankees’ infield is in need of a major revamp this offseason, though it remains to be seen whether that renovation is forthcoming. We’ve spent the last few days wondering about second base and Jazz Chisholm Jr.‘s future, and today we shift our attention to third. The Yankees have been among the worst teams in the league at third base over the last decade, the platoon of Ryan McMahon and Amed Rosario the latest to disappoint at the hot corner. The most likely course in 2027 would be a platoon between McMahon and Caballero given they are both still under contract, though they could consider shifting Anthony Volpe after he took reps there leading into the postseason. Looking outside the organization, the author considers trade proposals for Eugenio Suárez and Isaac Paredes while also examining the free agent cases of Alec Bohm and Bo Bichette should he opt out of his deal with the Mets.
MLB.com | Sweeny Murti: Almost 70 years after attending the last World Series win in Milwaukee, Joe Torre is back in the city that gave him his shot in baseball watching another Fall Classic. Torre was just a teenager when the Milwaukee Braves defeated the Yankees in seven games in 1957, his older brother a backup first baseman on the winning team. Torre played the first six seasons of his career in Milwaukee for the Braves before the franchise moved to Atlanta, and you can bet the Hall of Fame player and manager is rooting for the home team.
The answer is relatively immaterial, since only one thing matters: The Brewers are up 2-0 in this World Series after a 5-4 Game 2 victory, their second one-run conquest and a most unlikely one given that the club trailed 4-0 after a half-inning.
Or maybe it was totally predictable.
The Brewers are now 9-1 in this postseason and, stunningly, have won seven of eight games in which they have trailed. Relentless. Demoralizing.
Two wins from a World Series championship.
Let’s break down the winners and losers of Game 2 from American Family Field as the Series shifts to the Gulf Coast:
Winner: Brewers bullpen
This is getting ridiculous.
The Rays ran a blitz on Brewers starter Logan Henderson, posting a 4-0 lead after a half-inning, catcher Liam Hicks achieving a career highlight with a two-run World Series home run.
Predictably, Henderson was out after three innings. Perhaps even more easily anticipated: Milwaukee’s bullpen did not give up a single run in six innings, striking out six and walking one.
The Brewers bullpen is now 8-1 with a 1.24 ERA in 50 ⅔ innings this season. Lefty Aaron Ashby recorded the last five outs for the save, running his postseason line to 15 ⅔ innings, zero runs.
"I’ll take this quote from Freddie Freeman: They all throw 100," says Rays outfielder Jonny DeLuca. "That usually is pretty tough and they all got pretty good stuff. They’re just good pitchers."
Ashby is one out shy of equaling Andrew Miller’s record 16-inning scoreless streak to begin the 2016 postseason.
“What he's doing right now is pretty special,” says first baseman Jake Bauers. “There's just such a calm presence on the mound with him right now that I don't remember seeing very often.
“And you know, we wouldn't be here without him.”
There tend to be diminishing returns with relievers in long postseasons; Miller hit the wall badly in the final three games of that 2016 World Series, and conventional wisdom says opponents fare better when they see a reliever multiple times.
Well, Ashby faced the San Diego Padres three times. Same with the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers. And now the Tampa Bay Rays got two looks at him in World Series Games 1 and 2.
Ashby has yet to give up a run. The window to sully him is almost closed.
Sal Frelick: Winner
Say this for Brewers manager Pat Murphy: He can certainly call his shot.
Murphy was asked pregame about Frelick and couldn’t stop gushing, dropping comparisons to Joe Montana and Larry Bird.
“He’s got the it factor,” says Murphy, leaving the observer to use their own imagination.
In the sixth inning, Frelick made it crystal clear. His epic nine-pitch at-bat ended in a 408-foot bullet over the wall in right center field, tying the game 4-4 in the sixth inning. It was his first homer this postseason and perhaps will be remembered as the most impactful longball whenever this Brewers run concludes.
“Sort of this blackout feeling,” says Frelick of his trip around the bases.
And almost lights out for Tampa Bay.
Kevin Cash: Loser
Tough gig, this postseason managing. And losing a pair of World Series games by one run can leave a winter worth of soul-searching.
Not that Cash blatantly pushed the wrong buttons. He just keeps ending up in tight situations and trying to leverage his way out of them.
In Game 2, it was ace Drew Rasmussen suddenly becoming an avatar of inefficiency, the Brewers hen-pecking him by fouling off 22 pitches and forcing him from the game in the fourth inning.
Top lefty reliever Cam Booser had to be summoned then to douse a bases-loaded situaoitn and pitched a scoreless fifth. But Ian Seymour’s fusillade of fastballs backfired when Frelick took him deep.
And lifting Tyler Wells for Kevin Kelly yielded a somewhat predictable result in the seventh inning: Kelly averaged less than a strikeout per inning this season. And Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt, well, he put the ball in play, dropping a 90-mph sinker into right field to drive in Brice Turang with the go-ahead run.
“Cooper Pratt did a heck of a job staying on the ball, not trying to do too much, and shoot it the other way,” says Cash.
Stolen bases: Winner
The Brewers tallied five, the Rays two. Not to say the Go-Go Era is back in baseball; it was mostly pitcher malfeasance/indifference to keeping runners close.
Nonetheless, the Brewers’ five steals matched the 2024 Yankees in Game 4; the last time a club stole five bases in a World Series game minus today’s freewheeling pickoff rules was 1992, when Atlanta did it thanks to two swipes from none other than Deion Sanders.
The mystery of the check swing: Loser
Yeah, that automated check-swing replay thing is probably a foregone conclusion now, given how this game ended with Yandy Díaz’s arms spread wide in protest after crew chief James Hoye rang him up.
Cash thought Díaz swung, and Yandy generally agreed, though he did drop a couple “It is what it is,” a phrase that drops like a brick in any language.
Still, the call wasn’t nearly as questionable as, say, Wilmer Flores’ NLDS-ending strikeout against Max Scherzer and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yet in our societal thirst for optimization, we will probably leave those calls up to robots soon enough, too.
Tampa Bay ticket brokers: Loser
Nothing quite like a team coming home in a 2-0 deficit to goose enthusiasm when the club has struggled to sell all tickets, anyway. Seats were still available on the Rays web site - running $675 apiece for the second level.
Suffice to say, the Rays likely won't come near the $2,300 get-in record Milwaukee set for Game 1. But there could be a nice boost in Games 4 and 5 - what with Milwaukeeans wanting to see their team clinch.
But, my God, after their latest miraculous comeback, winning 5-4 over the Tampa Bay Rays at frenzied American Family Field, how can they not start dreaming?
They are up 2 games to 0 over the Rays, halfway to their first World Series championship in franchise history.
“Your brain really wants to go there, but you can’t let it," said Brewers pitcher Brandon Woodruff, their longest-tenured player, who has been with the organization since 2014. “You know what I mean? It’s like Kobe Bryant used to say, 'The job is not finished.’ We still got a lot of baseball lot to play.
“But come on, we’re human, how can you not think about it?"
Really, it’s impossible for anyone in the entire state of Wisconsin after what we're witnessing these days.
It happened again Saturday. They were down 4-0 just five batters in the game. They were facing the hottest pitcher in baseball in Drew Rasmussen. And yet, somehow, some way, they’re sitting in their clubhouse, almost laughing that everyone is completely shocked but themselves by what they’re accomplishing.
It sounds completely absurd, but the Brewers have now had seven postseason victories in which they trailed by a combined score of 20-5, only to shut out the opposition the rest of the way by a combined score of 28-0.
Not a single run.
And now, for the second time in their last three postseason games, the Brewers overcame a 4-0 deficit to win, outscoring the Dodgers and Rays, 11-0 in those games.
What in the world is the win probability of that?
“I never look at that," Brewers third baseman David Hamilton said. “I feel like our win probability is 100% every game. I always feel like we’re going to win the game somehow, someway, and we keep doing it."
They way the Brewers look at it, they’ve done it all year, so why stop now?
“I think for us," Brewers second baseman Brice Turang said, “we want to win so badly that it’s never a shock when we win. That’s why we’re here, believing we can win every game, no matter what."
The Brewers became the first team in postseason history to win seven of their first eight games that they’ve trailed.
Is it a miracle?
“No, I just see the Brewers,’’ Woodruff said. “I’ve seen it all year. That’s why we had 103 wins."
Still, it’s almost impossible to explain what’s happening right now in America’s heartland..
The Brewers bullpen is unconscious, yielding a 1.24 ERA this postseason.
Reliever Aaron Ashby has not permitted a run in 15 ⅔ innings, and is the first pitcher in postseason history to get at least five outs in six consecutive appearances without allowing a run.
“He’s a stud, an absolute stud," Woodruff said, “who’s just excelling at the right time."
And outfielder Sal Frelick, who had not hit a home run off a left-handed pitcher since opening day, hits a 403-foot homer over the center-field fence off lefty Ian Seymour to tie the game in the sixth inning, with 43,245 fans at American Family Field screaming so loud that you can hear it in Green Bay.
“I had this weird feeling he was going to do it right there," Woodruff said. “That dude right there personifies our team and the way we play baseball. He never gives in, and neither do we."
Still, a home run, to center field, off a left-handed pitcher, in a World Series game?
Are you kidding?
“Dude, that was sick," Hamilton said. “I had a feeling something good was going to happen."
Frelick only hit four home runs in the regular season, and 21 in his four-year career.
“I’ve never seen him hit a dead-center homer even in BP," Brewers said baseman Jake Bauers said. “I can't be happier for the guy. He deserves that moment. Just talking about it, it’s going to make me cry man.’’
So, has he really never hit a homer to dead center, even in batting practice?
“I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt," said Brewers hitting coach Daniel Vogelbach: “I think he’s done it. He’s got a little manpower. But it was impressive."
Said Turang: "He’s stronger than people think he is. He’s strong. I think it was everyone’s favorite swing of the season."
If Frelick had done it before, he certainly didn’t realize it was happening this night, running so fast during his home-run trot that he crossed home in just 22 seconds, almost half the time it took Rays third baseman Junior Caminero during his last homer.
“It was sort of this blackout feeling," said Frelick, who actually faced Seymour in college when he played at Boston College with Seymour at Virginia Tech.
Did he think it was gone?
“I've never hit a homer that I thought was gone," said Frelick, “So, no, I didn't.’’
When reminded that it was not only the Brewers’ first home run of the postseason, but the first time their mascot, Bernie Brewer, was able to slide down the chalet in front of the home crowd in World Series history, Frelick was almost speechless.
“No way,’’ he said. “Is that true?"
Yep.
“Wow, that's really cool," Frelick said. “I only made him go down four times this whole year. Cool stat there."
Really, everything the Brewers are doing these days is pretty darn cool, epitomizing a relentlessness that no analytic spreadsheet can define.
Every time you want to count them out, they’re back.
They’re down one minute, and back atop the next.
They have now knocked off three Cy Young winners this postseason with Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell and Robbie Ray, World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and now Rasmussen, who had been unbeatable since August. He yielded a 1.05 ERA in September and a 1.29 ERA in October. He lasted just 3 ⅔ innings, his shortest outing since July 9 against the Yankees.
“Our offense is built to kind of chip away and wear on pitchers," Frelick said, “which I think can be good when you're trying to come back. …I think just having an offense built like that is really good for when you're down. Today, we go down four, we know how good that guy is over there, let's just wear on him, see if we can get him out of the game, get to their bullpen and really break the thing open."
Mission accomplished. Once again.
“We’ve been though this before,’’ Woodruff said. “There’s no panic, you know what I mean. We know we’re going to score runs. And we know we’re going to grind out at-bats. And we know the pitchers are going to put a stop to it.’’
Said Brewers manager Pat Murphy: “Guys, they don't give up. They believe, and they don't give up. They just keep going."
Just ask the Rays about it, whose heads are spinning after these two games.
“They grind every AB, every pitch," Rays outfielder Chandler Simpson said. “They’ve got a lot of fight. They scrap away all nine innings."
Said Rays reliever Liam Hicks: “They don’t give in. They foul off a ton of pitches. They’re not going to chase us out of the zone so you got to stay in the zone. They’re going to spoil pitches until they get theirs. Credit to their hitters. Tough lineup.’’
And perhaps an unbeatable team that may not be stopped until the World Series parade in downtown Milwaukee.
“The confidence we have right now, I’ve never seen anything like it," Bauers said. “Not even close. These guys are relentless, man. We’ve played every single game since he season started just like this one. Relentless. Focused. And nothing more.’’
MILWAUKEE, WI - OCTOBER 24: Sal Frelick #10 of the Milwaukee Brewers rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run in the sixth inning during Game Two of the 2026 World Series presented by Capital One between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field on Saturday, October 24, 2026 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images
The 2026 Milwaukee Brewers might have to borrow a 40-year-old slogan from the Goonies: “Never Say Die.“
Tonight, the Brewers were facing Drew Rasmussen, the Tampa Bay ace and the best starting pitcher of the postseason so far. Logan Henderson, who hasn’t been at his best this postseason, suffered through a disastrous first inning. But if there was one thing that the Brewers proved against the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, it was that no lead is safe, and this remarkable team will not ever give up. In the parlance of one of the Brewer standouts this evening, the Brewers dragged Rasmussen. The ground out at-bats. They chipped away. Peck, peck, peck. And before it was over, Milwaukee had a couple of new offensive heroes, another huge comeback win, and a 2-0 series lead.
But before all that, it was a nightmare start for the Brewers.
The first batter of the game, Yandy Díaz, worked for seven pitches. The last one, a changeup way below the zone, was hit weakly to shortstop. Cooper Pratt fielded it but rushed the throw, which got by Jake Bauers and into the dugout, putting Díaz at second base. An ominous omen.
Henderson recovered momentarily and struck out Jonathan Aranda for the first out. But Chandler Simpson did Chandler Simpson things, knocking an RBI single into center field, after which he stole second and then scored when Junior Caminero followed with another RBI single. The Rays weren’t finished, though: Liam Hicks got an 0-1 cutter right down the middle and hit it out to right center, the first homer of the series, which made it 4-0 Rays with only one out on the board.
Henderson did retire the next two, but the Brewers would have to dig themselves out of a deep hole on this night. Fortunately, they’re a team that has proved time and time again that they’re a team that brought their shovels to the postseason. They got to work on Rasmussen immediately in the bottom of the first: Jackson Chourio singled, moved to third on a single by Bauers, and then scored when, after a Christian Yelich strikeout, William Contreras came through as he has so many times over the past month with an RBI single through the right side of the infield.
Brice Turang hit into a hard-luck second out when he hit a 109 mph line drive right at Richie Palacios. But Garrett Mitchell kept the pressure on the Rays, and hit a 112 mph single into right that scored Bauers. Pratt struck out to end the inning, but Milwaukee had immediately halved the Rays lead.
A leadoff walk to Victor Mesa Jr. in the second had Henderson on the precipice, but he showed some fight; Taylor Walls bunted, Mesa Jr. over to second but made the first out, and Henderson struck out Díaz and Aranda to get through the inning unscathed. Rasmussen was on his way to a quick inning in the bottom of the second, but Chourio took a hammer to his pitch count when, with two outs, he battled for 11 pitches before hitting a 105 mph groundout. It was a 1-2-3 inning for the Tampa Bay ace, but he had to work hard for it.
Henderson got one more inning and made the most of it, retiring Simpson, Caminero, and Hicks in order. The Brewers were unable to score in the bottom of the inning despite Contreras’s second hit of the game (which pushed his batting average in the postseason over .400). In the top of the fourth, JoJo Romero replaced Henderson and worked around a one-out single to put up another zero.
The Brewers were back on Rasmussen in the bottom of the fourth. With one out, Pratt drew a walk, and two pitches later, Sal Frelick lined a solid single into right, putting runners on the corners. David Hamilton, in a possible squeeze situation, eschewed the bunt and swung away, ultimately hitting what should’ve been a routine grounder to first. But Aranda, possibly with an eye on trying to get Pratt at home, booted it, and everyone was safe. The lead was down to one.
The Rays worked out of the inning, but after a Chourio groundout, Rasmussen walked Bauers, which ended his evening. He was replaced by the Rays’ best lefty, Cam Booser, who faced Yelich; another manager may have gone to Andrew Vaughn as a pinch-hitter with the bases full and two out, but Pat Murphy rode with Yelich, who anticlimactically grounded out to second.
The Brewer pitcher in the fifth was Dustin May. With one out, Aranda lined a double into the right-field corner, but May was able to work out of it—Aranda moved to third on a Simpson groundout, but a Pratt made an assured play on a slow Caminero chopper to end the inning and strand the Ray first baseman at third.
Booser worked through the middle of the Brewers’ order in the bottom of the fifth, allowing only a walk to Turang. DL Hall replaced May in the sixth and put himself in a hole when he hit the leadoff batter, Hicks, on the right forearm. He moved over on a sacrifice by Palacios, but Hall got the second out on a strikeout of Johnny DeLuca. Mesa Jr., though, came through with a two-out single to left, but Rays third base coach Brady Williams got extremely aggressive by sending his leadfooted catcher on a single to shallow left; Chourio’s throw was on target, and Hicks was toast at home plate.
The Brewers seized the momentum from getting the final out at home. With lefty Ian Seymor on to face the bottom of the Brewer order, Frelick, of all people, battled for nine pitches, and on the last one he took a 93 mph fastball right over the heart of the plate and hit it out to center field. Tie ballgame.
Milwaukee kept making Seymour work hard. Hamilton fell into a 1-2 count but hit seven foul balls before striking out. Chourio saw eight pitches before he struck out. With two outs, Bauers worked a walk. Yelich, against another lefty, hit a pop-up to shallow left, but it was sort of in no-man’s land between Walls, the shortstop, and Simpson, the left fielder. Some indecision about whose ball it was led to Simpson fielding it awkwardly; he had it in his glove, but he fell down while making the catch and when the glove hit the ground, the ball popped out. Bauers made it to third, while Yelich had a “single.”
With runners on the corners and two out, the Rays needed to pull Seymour, who had thrown 34 pitches and not recored an out. Kevin Cash went to righty Tyler Wells to face Contreras, who was definitely the batter the Brewers wanted up in this situation. The move to Wells worked, though; Contreras grounded out to third to end the inning. Still, for the second time in three games, the Brewers had erased an early 4-0 deficit by the end of the sixth inning.
With the game tied, the Brewers pivoted firmly toward their “A” bullpen, as Abner Uribe entered the game in place of Hall, facing Walls and then, for the second time in two days, the top of the Tampa Bay order. Troublingly, Uribe walked Walls, the worst hitter on the Rays’ roster, to set up the top of the order. Uribe got ahead of Díaz, and the Tampa Bay DH fouled off a bunch of pitches to stay alive, but Uribe finally got him with a slider for the first out. Aranda, who singled off of Uribe on Friday night, grounded out to second, but not until after Walls had stolen second base. With Walls at third and two out, Simpson was up, but he grounded out to first and Uribe’s bad leadoff walk didn’t come back on him.
With Wells still pitching, Turang got a rare at-bat against a right-handed reliever, and smoked the second pitch to the warning track in the right-field gap for a double. Mitchell also hit a ball deep to right but Mesa Jr. made a leaping catch in front of the wall; Turang was able to move to third, though, so it was a productive out. Cash went back to his bullpen and replaced Wells with another righty, Kevin Kelly, with Pratt at the plate.
Pratt delivered with the biggest hit of his young career. A base hit into right scored Turang from third, and the Brewers had flipped a 4-0 deficit into a 5-4 lead.
With Frelick back at the plate, Pratt stole second base, and the Brewers had another runner in scoring position with less than two outs. Frelick very nearly went yard again—he got into one, and the whole ballpark (and your humble scribe) thought he’d gotten his second of the game. But it held up on the warning track and Mesa Jr. made the catch for the second out. Hamilton grounded out, and Pratt was stranded, but not before he’d given the Brewers a late lead.
The Brewers now had a path to the end of the game in which they could avoid facing the top of the Rays order again. With the right-handed Caminero at the plate, Uribe stayed in the game with Aaron Ashby ready in the bullpen. Uribe got Caminero to chase a couple sliders that were way out of the zone, and on the fifth of five straight sliders from the Brewer righty, Caminero rolled over it harmlessly to shortstop for the first out. Ashby then replaced Uribe, and Cash countered by pinch-hitting Ryan Vilade for Hicks, and Ashby struck him out on a 3-2 changeup. Palacios hit a harmless grounder to second, which Turang flipped over to Bauers for the third out. Ashby was up to 14 2/3 scoreless innings this postseason.
With Kelly still pitching, Chourio led off the eighth with a single to center. Bauers flew out to the fringe of the warning track in left, but with Yelich up Chourio stole second base. Yelich drew a walk, and Contreras came to the plate to face Kelly, who was certainly on his last hitter. With Contreras at the plate, the Brewers executed a double steal, putting runners at second and third with one out. Contreras chased a 3-2 pitch and hit a grounder to shortstop, and Chourio was thrown out at home. The Brewers challenged, and it was very, very close, but for the second straight night, a very close, late-inning review on a run-scoring play went the Rays’ way as the play stood. Kelly was replaced by lefty Steven Matz, and with two outs and runners on the corners, Turang battled and made decent contact but flew out down the left-field line to end the inning.
Ashby had only thrown nine pitches to get his two outs in the eighth, so the Brewers rolled him back out there with a one-run lead in the ninth, with the bottom of the order due up. But maybe the long bottom of the eighth was a detriment; DeLuca lined a double down the right-field line to start the inning, and the Rays let the Brewers know: it’s not going to be that easy.
Trevor Megill warmed in the bullpen as Ashby faced Mesa Jr., but Ashby got back into the inning by striking him out on four pitches. The Rays sent pinch-hitter Ben Williamson to the plate in place of Walls, and he rolled a ball out to Turang. DeLuca advanced to third, but there were two out. Here’s where Murphy had a choice to make: did he stick with Ashby, or did he bring on Megill to face the right-handed Yandy Díaz, who led the majors in batting average with runners in scoring position this year.
Murphy stuck with Ashby. Ashby fell behind 3-1. He worked it back full. On 3-2, Ashby put a curveball in the dirt. Díaz tried to check his swing, but first-base umpire James Hoye said he went around. It was close, but it was a just mirror of a non-call on Caminero’s check swing in the ninth inning on Friday night. The game was over, and Ashby, by working out of trouble, added to his postseason legend.
This team’s resiliency has been a trait all season, but now their ability to bounce back, their unwillingness to give in, their “never say die” attitude, has become their defining characteristic. Two games ago, the Brewers fell behind 4-0 to the Dodgers after Shohei Ohtani’s three-run homer. It took them three innings to erase the deficit and a fourth to take the lead. Tonight, they fell behind 4-0, and it took them a whole six innings to erase the Rays’ lead and seven to take the lead. How lazy of them.
The Brewers got offensive contributions up and down the roster; every batter in the lineup got at least one hit except for Hamilton, who reached on a run-scoring error and was credited with an RBI. In a postseason that keeps giving us new heroes, tonight it was Frelick, whose solo homer in the sixth tied the game, and Pratt, who atoned for his first-inning throwing error by knocking in the go-ahead, and ultimately winning, run in the seventh.
And then there was Ashby, this postseason’s Grim Reaper. Tonight he was cruel enough to make Tampa Bay think they were going to get him before he buckled down and got the last three outs of the game. He’s up to 15 2/3 scoreless innings in the postseason. No player has ever thrown that many innings and had a scoreless postseason; only Andrew Miller has a longer postseason streak, but if Ashby can get two more outs without allowing a run, he’ll break that record, too.
Milwaukee now takes a 2-0 lead to Tampa. They say that seven-game postseason series don’t really begin until someone wins a game on the road, but the Brewers have put themselves in excellent position by beating the Rays at what the Rays have done best all season: winning one-run games. After an off day tomorrow, we’ll be back at it on Monday night at 7pm central time.
