Brewers One Win From First Title as Rays Seek Series Extension

The Milwaukee Brewers stand one victory away from their first World Series championship. They host the Tampa Bay Rays for Game 5 on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. First pitch is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET.

The series reached this point after Tampa Bay won a 12-inning game on Tuesday. That 4-3 result trimmed the Brewers' lead to 3-1 in the best-of-seven contest. The visitors entered the postseason as the top seed, finishing the regular season with a 103-59 record. The Rays concluded their campaign at 98-64.

Jacob Misiorowski is expected to start for Milwaukee. He posted a 16-5 record with a 1.80 earned run average during the season. Tampa Bay is expected to counter with Drew Rasmussen, who went 16-5 with a 2.67 ERA, though the club has not officially confirmed its pitching decision.

Bookmakers currently favor the Brewers. The money line lists Milwaukee at -154, requiring a bettor to risk $154 to win $100. Tampa Bay is listed at +128. The total run line is set at 6.5.

SportsLine's computer model projects a higher-scoring game based on 10,000 simulations. The model recommends the over at -119 and projects 8.4 combined runs. In its simulations, the over occurred in 69% of trials. The model entered the series with a 32-25 record on its top-rated MLB money-line picks.

Recent head-to-head data supports a high run total. The over has hit in four of the last six meetings between these teams. It is 5-2 in Milwaukee's last seven games and 4-3 in Tampa Bay's last seven. In Rays home games with a line of 7.0 or lower, the over is 8-5-2. In all Tampa Bay games against teams allowing 3.9 or fewer runs, the over is 20-16-4.

The model identifies specific hitters likely to exceed base totals. It projects Jackson Chourio and Jake Bauers of the Brewers to reach at least 1.5 total bases. For the Rays, it expects Yandy Diaz, Junior Caminero, and Jonathan Aranda to each total at least 1.4. A Brewers win ends the series, while a Rays win sends the series back to Milwaukee.