MLB Desk · World Series Breakdown · By Cash Emerson · October 25, 2026

Down 0–2 in the World Series. The Rays Are Winning It Anyway.

Let's get the honest part out of the way first, because I said it on the show and I sent it to WDAE before a pitch was thrown in Milwaukee: this was expected. The Brewers were the best team in baseball all summer — 103 wins, a plus-214 run differential, the class of the sport. Going into their building and coming home 0–2 surprises nobody who watched this season. I know, because I watched all of it — 173 games documented and counting. And I'm telling you now, the same way I told you before the series started: it doesn't change the ending.

What happened in Milwaukee

Game 1 — Brewers 3, Rays 2. Milwaukee scored twice in the first — a Christian Yelich RBI triple and a William Contreras RBI single off Nick Martinez — and Jacob Misiorowski, throwing 103, made it stand up for five innings. The Rays ground out their runs the hard way: Liam Hicks drove in both without a hit, on groundouts in the fourth and the ninth. Jonathan Aranda went 3-for-3. Tampa Bay got it to a run in the ninth and lost by that run.

Game 2 — Brewers 5, Rays 4. The Rays punched first and punched hard: four runs in the first inning, capped by a two-run homer from Liam Hicks. Then they spent eight innings shooting themselves in the foot. Aranda dropped a foul pop that gave Contreras an extra life — Contreras singled in a run one batter later. A Hamilton grounder went through Aranda's legs. The Rays went 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position, managed one hit over the final three innings, and watched 13 of their last 16 hitters sit down. Sal Frelick homered to tie it, Cooper Pratt singled in the winner, and a 4–0 lead became an 0–2 hole.

The X Factor has a name, and I called it years ago

William Contreras is the X Factor of this series. I said it to WDAE, I said it on this show, and I'll say it every day until the rest of baseball catches up: the Atlanta Braves did everybody a disservice when they traded him — and nobody got done dirtier than the Braves themselves. They traded a future Hall of Famer. I called it during his rookie season in Atlanta and I haven't moved an inch since: the kid has the most fluid swing in baseball, and a swing that fluid translates anywhere, everywhere, against anybody. He is an MVP one to three years from right now, and I will fight on that hill until the day he's inducted.

I'm a former catcher. I coached catchers and I coached hitting. Reading a swing is what I do — and I read his in Game 1. Two-for-three, the RBI single that stood up as the difference, a walk. And behind the plate he was even better: he threw out two Rays trying to steal, blocked balls in the dirt with runners on third, and ran the game. Don't take my word for it — take his manager's. Pat Murphy, after Game 1: "Contreras was the player of the game." When the other dugout is saying your name in October, the argument is over.

Now let's talk about Erik Neander

Erik Neander — E-R-I-K, spell the man's name right, he's earned it — pulled the World Series move of the year out of his back pocket at the trade deadline. Freddy Peralta. Eight years a Brewer, then a Met — and when New York gave up on him at the deadline (5–9, 4.99), Neander went and got him and made him the ace of this staff: ALCS MVP, 2–0 with a 1.08 ERA this postseason. Monday night at the Trop, Peralta starts Game 3 against the franchise that raised him, facing Robert Gasser and a Brewers team that has to beat its own history. Peralta is going to win Game 3. Write it down.

And the other deadline piece is already paying: Liam Hicks. Two runs driven in without a hit in Game 1 — a catcher grinding out productive outs — then a two-run homer in the first inning of Game 2. That swing is the start of something. Hicks is about to get hot, and when a catcher gets hot in October, a lineup gets long in a hurry.

What has to happen — and why it will

One: Peralta sets the tone Monday. The whole comeback starts with six or seven dominant innings from the man Milwaukee let get away.

Two: stop shooting themselves in the foot. Watch the two losses back. A dropped foul pop. A grounder through the wickets. Thirteen of the last sixteen hitters retired in Game 2. Milwaukee is great, but the Rays beat the Rays in Game 2. That's fixable, and it's the kind of fixable that flips a series.

Three: play all nine innings. Four runs in the first and silence for eight is not a talent problem — it's a focus problem. The contact is there; this team put the ball in play better than anyone in baseball all year. The full nine is coming.

Four: the Trop. The format hands Tampa Bay three straight at home, where the Rays went 55–26 this season and are 4–1 this postseason. Milwaukee protected its house. Now it has to take ours, three times, against a team that lost exactly zero games all year when it led after eight — 92–0.

Here's the thing about a series: you can't lose it in one game. You can't lose it in two road games against the best team in baseball, either. But you can win it in four straight. This Rays team has more than enough — I've watched every inning of the season that says so. Rays in six. I said it before Milwaukee, I said it at 0–1, and 0–2 doesn't change a single word.

Sources: official game accounts and box scores (Sportradar game centers; Associated Press game reports via NBC Sports). Series facts: Brewers 103–59, plus-214 run differential; Rays 98–64, 55–26 at home, 92–0 when leading after eight. Game 3: Monday, October 26, Tropicana Field — Freddy Peralta vs. Robert Gasser.