This World Series features the No. 1 seed in each league, and Game 1 definitely felt like it was a matchup between teams who are nearly dead even. Every pitch was stressful, every at-bat mattered. These teams are close. The Brewers were just a tiny bit better, pulling out a 3-2 victory in the franchise’s first World Series in 44 years.
That bodes incredibly well for tonight’s Game 2 at American Family Field. And it bodes even better for us having a long, rich series.
Here are three key questions to consider before the Rays try to even the series tonight.
World Series Game 2: Rays at Brewers (MIL ahead 1-0)
8 p.m. ET, FOX/FOX One
SP: Drew Rasmussen (TB) vs. Logan Henderson (MIL)
Can Rasmussen validate Cash’s surprise decision?
You don’t have to squint too hard to understand what Rays manager Kevin Cash was thinking holding his ace, Rasmussen, until Game 2 rather than having him battle Jacob Misiorowski in Game 1. The Rays have been giving Rasmussen (who has an extensive injury history) that extra day off regularly this season, Nick Martinez has been good and the ideal situation involved the Rays stealing Game 1 off Misiorowski and having Rasmussen available to take a commanding 2-0 lead before heading back to Tropicana Field for the next three games.
But Cash may have gotten the opposite of the ideal situation. Martinez was indeed good, but he gave up two runs in the first inning, which put the Rays into a hole they never escaped. It’s fair to think Rasmussen would have not given up two runs in the first, considering he has given up three runs in 21 innings this entire postseason. It’s almost as if the game scenario in Game 1 was set up precisely to make Cash’s decision look more questionable. But you know what will really make it look questionable? If the Rays can’t win Game 2 with Rasmussen.
Is it a big deal that Henderson is a rookie?
A rookie starting Game 2 of the World Series. It sounds terrifying, doesn’t it? This is the sport’s biggest stage, packed with the most important games any of these players will ever be involved with. That’s too much for a rookie! Right? Well.
When Henderson takes the hill Saturday night, it will be the fourth consecutive season, and eighth out of the past nine, in which a rookie has started a World Series game. (The only exception was 2022.) That stretch started with the Dodgers’ Walker Buehler in 2018 and continued with the Blue Jays’ Trey Yesavage for two games in 2025. In 2021, four different rookies started World Series games: Luis García for the Astros and Tucker Davidson, Dylan Lee and Ian Anderson for the Braves. Collectively over that 2018-25 span, the 12 rookie World Series starters posted a 3.30 ERA in 15 starts.
This is all to say that there’s plenty of precedent for rookies in big games like this, and Henderson has looked fine so far this postseason, giving the Brewers nine innings and allowing just three earned runs in his two starts, both games that the Brewers won. It’s very easy to say that this could be too much, for a rookie to start a game of this magnitude. But historically -- and personally -- Henderson could be set up to be just fine.
Could this be the Jackson Chourio series?
Chourio may have the clutchest hit of this entire postseason, his walk-off single against Padres closer Mason Miller in Game 2 of the NLDS. But that was hardly an isolated incident. He had a game-tying homer in Game 1 of that series, a go-ahead hit in Game 4 of that series and a leadoff homer against Blake Snell to set the tone in Game 3 of the NLCS. The latest example came Friday, with an RBI hit in the seventh inning that extended Milwaukee’s lead to 3-1. That ended up being of paramount importance, as that insurance ended up being the difference in the victory.
Chourio’s overall numbers this postseason actually aren’t all that great: He’s hitting .205 with a .238 OBP. But it sure seems like every time the Brewers need him to come through in a big spot, he does. In a series as tight as this one clearly seems like it will be, he could end up being the difference in the whole thing.