The Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays will play in the 2026 World Series. Milwaukee had the best record in all of MLB during the regular season. However, the Rays feature plenty of talent and they had the best record in the American League. It should be a competitive series.

The players' performances will obviously go a long way toward determining the outcome of the series, but manager decisions will certainly impact matters as well. Milwaukee will need to avoid making one specific mistake in the Fall Classic.

Now, we could talk about a few potential mistakes. Should Christian Yelich start more consistently? Which relievers should manager Pat Murphy lean on? Today, though, we will be focusing specifically on Murphy's management of ace Jacob Misiorowski.

Brewers facing challenging Jacob Misiorowski situation in World Series

“The Miz” is surely going to win the National League Cy Young Award. He was terrific all throughout the regular season and has continued to perform well in the postseason.

The concern is that Misiorowski is only in his second career MLB season. In 2025, he only pitched in 66 total innings in the regular season and 12 more innings in the postseason. Meanwhile, Misiorowski turned in 174.2 innings of work during the 2026 regular season alone. He's already added 8.1 more innings in the playoffs so far.

There may be an understandable hesitancy to let Misiorowski work deep into games. Murphy and the Brewers need to be careful about over-managing the situation, however. Of course, player health is of the utmost importance. Misiorowski isn't showing many signs of slowing down and he's now had plenty of time to rest before the Fall Classic.

I'm not trying to argue that Milwaukee should forget about pitch count and let Misiorowski throw 115 pitches in each of his World Series starts. Rather, Milwaukee needs to let Misiorowski do his thing on the mound without making it clear that they will remove him at the first sign of trouble.

An example

For example, say Misiorowski makes it through 2.1 innings of scoreless baseball in Game 1 but he's already up around 54 pitches with runners on first and second base. I'm not going to name names, but there are managers who would instantly turn to the bullpen in that situation in the postseason. The Brewers wouldn't be where they are without Misiorowski, though. Murphy needs to trust his ace and let him attempt to work out of the jam.

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Sure, a similar situation in the 5th or 6th inning will be different if Misiorowski is up around that 80-90 pitch mark. Milwaukee has a strong bullpen that should be implemented. Making the smart decision still makes sense.

The mistake would be letting Misiorowski's already high amount of innings turn him into more of an opener than a true starter. He worked four innings in his first playoff start and 4.1 in his second outing this year. Unless pitch count or underperformance becomes an undeniable issue, letting Misiorowski work into the 5th or 6th inning should be the decision for Milwaukee in Misiorowski's starts.

The Rays pitch and field the baseball well. They find ways to manufacture runs on offense. Every decision is going to matter in this series.

Why not let your ace deal against them for five or six innings? Unless there's a clear reason to remove him, Misiorowski should be at a point where he's earned the trust to work deeper into games even in the World Series.