It was almost like we thought, but with some interesting twists along the way: Game 1 of the 2026 World Series with Tampa Bay at Milwaukee was a battle with some questionable tactics and occasional flubs that could have turned the game the Rays’ way.

This is how the game unfolded.

Muscle mountain Yandy Diaz as the leadoff batter? Interesting for a team purporting to be old school baseball. He is hitting .308 in the postseason, but he’s not going to be stealing bases. It seems like a real gamble that he could start the game with a dinger when you’d like to have his bat later to drive in runs. He almost paid that off, flying to deep right as he stepped in a bucket to hit one to the opposite field. 

Jonathan Aranda turns one around and delivers a single to right. Chandler Simpson’s swing is so short it might as well be in Little League. I’d bat him first. He goes opposite field in the first. It looks like Kevin Cash is a genius. But then Junior Caminero gets way out in front of an off-speed pitch from Jacob Misiorowski and lines into a double play. 

Bottom one. Nick Martinez is immediately in trouble. Jackson Chourio singles. Jake Bauers comes into the game averaging more than five pitches per at-bat in the playoffs. Yelich’s drive to the right center field gap is a muscle twitch from being an out. Jonny DeLuca lays out to snare it and just can’t corral the ball in midair. No matter. The ball finds the ground and Milwaukee’s up 1-0. 

William Contreras then singles to right to score Yelich and every casual baseball fan in the world is asking himself, “Who’s this Martinez guy again and why is he wearing a hat that’s at least two sizes too big?

Sal Frelick singles to right in the bottom of the second inning. David Hamilton bunts him over. Okay…Frelick can steal second standing on his head. Why is Hamilton bunting? Let Frelick steal and then bunt him over or swing away. 

Frelick steals third which further validates my point that the bunt was useless and wasted an out. 

Martinez strikes out Chourio. Milwaukee gives up an out and squanders a chance to put another run on the board. 

Funny thing about throwing 104. You can get away with a lot of misses in the hitting zone. Diaz hits one hard, but right to the second baseman.

Martinez settles down in the third. Bauers strikes out. No heroics from him this time.

Tampa Bay strikes for a run in fourth

Aranda would be batting leadoff if he could run at all…oh yeah…we’re not doing that this game. He singles. Junior Caminero doubles. Liam Hicks gets an RBI with a nubber in the infield. Food for thought, kids: should you get a run-batted-in if you barely hit the ball? Discuss

Fifth inning. It’s obvious every runner is even more important. The Rays get Victor Mesa Jr. to second with one of the best hitters at the plate in Diaz at the plate. 

There’s a reason stealing third is so hard to do. One: the runner is closer to the mound. Two: the catcher is much closer to third base than third not only as the pitch is delivered, but then more so as the catcher is able to take a full step toward third instead of having to jump sideways or toward shortstop in order to throw to second. All of this adds up to Mesa thrown out at third on a beautiful throw by Contreras. Unforgivable third out at third given Diaz is also the best hitter in the game at batting with runners in scoring position. 

The Brewer’s Hamilton returned the favor in the bottom of the inning by doubling on the next pitch and then stumbling around second base. In the “isn’t that odd” category, it was Mesa Jr. throwing him out. Mesa’s whole vibe screams inferiority complex. The finger wag after he had just been hosed at third solidifies that

With Misiorowski out, Uribe is in and the lefthanded Aranda promptly singles. With one out, Simpson strikes out on a hit and run leaving Aranda a dead duck trying to steal second. Funny thing about small ball. A catcher with a cannon can ruin almost all of your master plans. Contreras ended two of the first five innings with a caught-stealing.

Also funny: Kevin Cash’s reliance on Stephen Matz. He comes into the game and gets seven quick balls to Brewer hitters. Mitchell, however, spits on this good fortune and reaches for an off-speed pitch to ground out weekly to second. 

Okay, Matz got out of it this time as part of the Cash tiny circle of trust. But, he walks off the mound looking disgusted and less-than confident. If Stephen Matz is your second go-to guy, who are the guys going to be when you have used the same five guys five straight days and you have to start using the rest of the bullpen?

The reliance on the “short pen” could end up wrecking either team. 

Speaking of which, Aaron Ashby is on for Milwaukee.

The seventh starts with Matz back on the mound. Cash missed the body language class at Florida State. Matz throws more pitches out of the strike zone. Cooper Pratt walks. Sal Frelick shows bunt, but pulls it back and lines out to left center. Great idea. He just got under it enough to let Simpson get there in time to catch the ball.

A ground ball out gets Pratt to second. Jackson Chourio greets Kevin Kelly with an oppo RBI single past the first base bag. 3-1 Brewers. Opposite field. Knob through first, kids. It’s a good thing. Bauers then does exactly the same thing down/on the LEFT field line. Thankfully for the Brewers, umpire Dan Bellino (not to be confused with Dan Molina’s portrayal of Nick Tortelli on Cheers) was the extra umpire and was literally three feet from the spot.

Kevin Kelly comes in and frisbees two balls to Yelich but the designated hitter and team captain can’t take advantage. His missile to first goes in the scorebook the same way a weak grounder would. 

Aaron Ashby comes out for a second inning. 

Eighth inning. Mesa Jr. strikes out on a pitch that’s closer to the line on the batters box than it is to home plate. 

Ashby gets a strikeout on a changeup away to the righty Ben Williamson

Cash brings Ryan Vilade out to pinch hit for Taylor Walls. Easy ground out to end the inning. 

Following the short pen protocol, Cash has Garrett Cleavinger come in to face Bryce Turang. Wait. What??? Who??? Cleavinger hasn’t pitched in two months! Talk about a welcome-back-son-no-pressure moment. None of the other guys in the pen can pitch? Really? Cleavinger walks Turang. Contreras hits what should have been ball two on a rope to left.

Fundamentals are important, kids. When you drop the barrel trying to bunt, bad things happen. Mitchell pops out to third. 

That brings Pratt up. The kid has been nails all year. A high chopper gets a force at second but Pratt beats the relay. 

Pat Kelly pulls Sal Frelick to bring human swing machine, Gary Sanchez in. 

Sanchez…takes two pitches? My Fubo DVR short-circuited and fast forwarded two minutes. Caminero makes a great shorthanded pickup to record the out. 

Megill in to close it out. He gets Diaz on a weak grounder. Aranda goes oppo for his fourth hit of the game. That brings up Chandler Simpson who hasn’t struck out twice in a game since before the All Star break. 

Turning the back foot is important to hamstring, health, kids. Ask Simpson and his tweaked hammy if I’m wrong. 

Regardless, he singles up the middle and all of a sudden Megill is in trouble 

Caminero swings at strike three but his yanking the bat straight up on the check swing confuses first base umpire Nick Lentz. 

Liam Hicks smokes one to second but Brice Turang makes a beautiful turn and fires to second. Pratt pulls his foot off the bag before making the throw to first. Run scores. 3-2 Milwaukee. 

That brings up DeLuca. 

He fouls off a fastball and watches a hanging slider go by. The last pitch he saw was not the one he wanted. It was also not the one he could hit. Strike three.

Final. 3-2 Milwaukee. 

Cash’s Rays could have won this if they’d been clean defensively and if Mesa Jr. had been a little smarter. Cash’s bullpen still looks to be the difference -and not in way he would like. No reason to believe Tampa Bay will keep the Brewers from winning their first World Series.