World Series Game 1, Rays (Martinez) vs Brewers (Misiorowski): 10/23/26, 7:00pm

[MrTPlush]

They had amazing camera angles on that play at 2nd. His foot came off the bag and his cleat did not scrape it again. I was hoping there would be enough ‘mmmm too close to call’ for them to end the game, but you gotta look at those replays in a big Brewers bias way to think his metal cleat touched the base again.

I also don’t really have an issue with it replayed either. Pratt was rushing his foot off to turn a DP to end a World Series game. I have an issue when it is someone stealing a base and their hand pops up 1 millimeter for a fraction of a second so they get called out because they applied the tag the entire time…that’s lame.

Idk, the rules have been like this for a very long time. If everyone wants to turn back the clock we could just have the guy running to second take out both Pratt’s legs 10 feet away from the bag sending the ball into RF scoring 2.

[Frisbee Slider]

8 hours ago, BCF said:

 

Not seeing the Rays’ leverage arms helped Milwaukee. Our 7th inning run was the difference.

[adambr2]

Cash isn’t wrong. I don’t see any of Megill, Ashby, or Uribe ever being truly unavailable at any point this series, but the more you can make them go the better the chances are of any one of them cracking. We saw that with Uribe in the NLCS. 

Fortunately, we still have DL Hall. May has great stuff out of the bullpen or so I’m told.  Romero has had a good postseason.

But the 3 we used last night are definitely the most important.

Murphy made the right calls in using them last night as it was not a game we could afford to drop. It would be great to get 2 out of 3 of them the night off tonight and get them 2 straight days off before Tampa.

[willie key]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

I think way too much has been made of this. It's late October, those kinds of gut-it-out, short starts against the best teams standing are to be expected. The results are what matters and he has positioned us to win in all 3 starts. He's done exactly what you need your #1 to do. You'd want a little more out of the first 2 games, but a 5IP 1ER start is just fine. I'll take every night to hand to our pen.

I don’t know of if I necessarily believe that.    A guy like Miz and what he’s done this year is expected to dominate his games.    And many World Series champs have had guys who’ve done that.    I would say we are probably on an unprecedented performance by a bullpen during a whole postseason that might not have ever happened before

 

its a testament to the full team that Miz can barely make it to the minimum to qualify for a decision and they still win his games

 

[MrTPlush]

The only reason Miz starts are good/acceptable is because he has a very elite bullpen that is pitching historical baseball right now to bail him out.

Other Cy Young winners from past seasons commonly throw 6+ or even 7+ inning regularly in the postseason. Many of which weren’t historically good like Miz was. 4, 4.1, and 5 innings out of a pitcher that just had one of the greatest season in modern baseball history? We need to stop sugar coating his performance. Robert Gasser did just as good as him, esh

I will give credit to Miz for battling to still put up a low scoring 4-5 innings, but coming into the postseason you figured Miz would be a Top 3, if not the most important reason if we win it all. So far he feels more like a complimentary piece than an impact player.

 

[adambr2]

16 minutes ago, willie key said:

I don’t know of if I necessarily believe that.    A guy like Miz and what he’s done this year is expected to dominate his games.    And many World Series champs have had guys who’ve done that.    I would say we are probably on an unprecedented performance by a bullpen during a whole postseason that might not have ever happened before

 

its a testament to the full team that Miz can barely make it to the minimum to qualify for a decision and they still win his games

 

He gave us 5 innings and allowed 1 run. Against another World Series team. 

He had a quick hook because we have an elite bullpen that affords us that luxury.

If we had the Cubs bullpen, Miz would have been back out for the 6th and maybe 7th. 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

The Rays and Brewers are going to win with different approaches. 

We're committed to winning with bullpen at this point. It's going to be a heavy dose of Ashby, Uribe, and Megill, and yeah. Seeing them a lot might help the Rays. It didn't much help the Dodgers and Padres, but they also didn't get to a Game 5.

I think what Cash maybe doesn't quite APPRECIATE (because I know the Rays see it and have prepared for it) is how good Hall and Romero have been. And Senzatela is not a slouch, either. Plus, Woodruff is basically unscoutable. Nobody knows what he's going to do, and that makes him impossible to prep for. The Brewers have quality and depth in the pen, and that's why they're going to rely on it. The Rays only have quality at the top, and even that's a little questionable given Baker's velocity dip. So, they don't really have a choice but to scramble a bit.

Like @owbcsaid, I'm reading confidence in Cash's overall approach. Is that the RIGHT approach, though? Whew, I don't know. To treat a World Series game as essentially just another game is worthy of admiration and also a little bit stunning. The 7th inning, if played aggressively, would have likely required one high-leverage reliever (Booser) to get one guy out (Bauers). To avoid that so completely suggests a confidence bordering on deep fear of overexposure on your own side. 

We'll see how it plays, but the Rays are committed to the bit. Their hitters won't challenge, and their top relievers are not going to pitch without tie/lead unless it's close to close out time.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Wild talk. Miz is 13 1/3 with 14 strikeouts, a 1.35 WHIP and 2.70 era. Would you like longer starts, yes. Is he off his trailblazing regular season, sure. They have the luxury of yanking him because it isn't worth a 3rd time through the order when you can bring in the league's best pen to make life easier. 

I shudder to think what would be said about the guy if he were actually giving up runs. He's gotten out of trouble and put them in a spot to win every start. Complimentary player is laughable. Then comparing to Gasser which is really just an insult to how damn valuable Gasser has been. 

Needlessly logging him 7IP so we can satisfy calling him an ace is how Snell happens. 

[MrTPlush]

No one said needlessly complete 7 IP. Snell earned the opportunity to sniff the 7 inning, Miz hasn’t pitched once worthy of such. Murphy has wisely pulled Miz when he knew he should…thus failing to even manage the 5 innings for a quality start 2/3 times.

Call it a wild take, but expecting one of the best pitchers in recent memory to log a quality start more than 1/3 times doesn’t seem like a crazy expectation. He just hasn’t pitched well enough to warrant it. Thankfully we haven’t had to care much because our middle relief is unstoppable and hopefully that continues for the next week when Ashby is crowned World Series MVP.

[BCF]

2 hours ago, MoreTrife said:

I'll never believe that Pratt's METAL spike didn't scrape the bag. He was OUT. Yeah I know it appeared the foot was hovering above the bag but they zoomed in and you could see the dark shadow of metal cleat wobbling from scrapping bag. Out.

 

Miz is...I don't know. Super frustrating to go from 40% WHIFF rate to mid teens. He basically had no secondary pitch right now. Cutter barely moves and he can't locate slider well.

He’s near 200 innings which is by far the most he’s ever thrown. Guaranteed there’s some sort of fatigue right now 

[BCF]

6 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

No one said needlessly complete 7 IP. Snell earned the opportunity to sniff the 7 inning, Miz hasn’t pitched once worthy of such. Murphy has wisely pulled Miz when he knew he should…thus failing to even manage the 5 innings for a quality start 2/3 times.

Call it a wild take, but expecting one of the best pitchers in recent memory to log a quality start more than 1/3 times doesn’t seem like a crazy expectation. He just hasn’t pitched well enough to warrant it. Thankfully we haven’t had to care much because our middle relief is unstoppable and hopefully that continues for the next week when Ashby is crowned World Series MVP.

He was at 74 pitches after 5. He could have went out for the 6th but why risk it when you have the best bullpen in the game by far and they are well rested?

[PeaveyFury]

2 hours ago, adambr2 said:

I’m less completely convinced, but I definitely don’t think he was indisputably safe. 

If that same exact play happens at 2nd base 100 times, the 2B umpire is going to call an out 99 times out of 100 on the field.

Did not see that he conclusively came off. Disappointing overturn with the stakes this high. 

I think this puts it exceptionally well. Did it look like Pratt was off the base? Yep. Will an ump call that play an out 99% of the time? Yep. Did they get it right in overturning it? Probably. Was it truly 'indisputable'? I thought there was at least a chance of a 'call stands' there since it was SOOOO close.

[TURBO]

What a game.

Just read through this entire thread, and it was fun reliving that game in the minds of the guys who post here.

I can't believe this thread only has 35 pages though, I expected to have to read 50+ :)

Ok, take the day and gear up for tonight.  Need to keep busy, so I see a lot of yardwork in today's future.

Again, what a freaking game!

[MrTPlush]

10 minutes ago, BCF said:

He was at 74 pitches after 5. He could have went out for the 6th but why risk it when you have the best bullpen in the game by far and they are well rested?

Well he wasn’t pitching well. Both the 4th and 5th were pretty awful from a locating standpoint. Non competitive pitches if they were a 4-seamer. Thurs time through the order would have been crazy. The good news is their lineup really drops off after Caminero…so Miz was able to battle it out through the 5th.

Thankfully, it isn’t like 15+ year ago where you’d look and say, “Yup, 1 run through 5 innings and only 75 pitches! Send him out again”

 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

15 minutes ago, BCF said:

He was at 74 pitches after 5. He could have went out for the 6th but why risk it when you have the best bullpen in the game by far and they are well rested?

Yeah, what? He's back out there in the regular season 100%.  

[willie key]

I honestly think the rays manager thinks these next two games are going to be easy wins for them.    We will see

[adambr2]

3 minutes ago, willie key said:

I honestly think the rays manager thinks these next two games are going to be easy wins for them.    We will see

I don’t think the manager of either team is either dumb nor arrogant enough to believe that winning any World Series game is going to be an easy task. 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

50 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Wild talk. Miz is 13 1/3 with 14 strikeouts, a 1.35 WHIP and 2.70 era. Would you like longer starts, yes. Is he off his trailblazing regular season, sure. They have the luxury of yanking him because it isn't worth a 3rd time through the order when you can bring in the league's best pen to make life easier. 

I shudder to think what would be said about the guy if he were actually giving up runs. He's gotten out of trouble and put them in a spot to win every start. Complimentary player is laughable. Then comparing to Gasser which is really just an insult to how damn valuable Gasser has been. 

Needlessly logging him 7IP so we can satisfy calling him an ace is how Snell happens. 

This. 

Mis is gassed. He's still gaming, still PITCHING, still LEARNING. In the World Series! That ability to adjust and continue adjusting and getting outs without your whiffs is impressive. He was a deserving winning pitcher tonight. I'll take another performance like that if it gets back to him, no question.

[Frisbee Slider]

19 minutes ago, willie key said:

I honestly think the rays manager thinks these next two games are going to be easy wins for them.    We will see

From a poker analogy, I think Tampa is saving their chips to go all in on game two. They like their cards better with Rasmussen and rested leverage arms. If you split on the road, it doesn’t really matter how that happens.

[adambr2]

2 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

From a poker analogy, I think Tampa is saving their chips to go all in on game two. They like their cards better with Rasmussen and rested leverage arms. If you split on the road, it doesn’t really matter how that happens.

I’m surprised that there isn’t more angst among Brewer fans about letting Rasmussen get away. He’s turned out to be so good. Seems like a good dude, too.

It’s not like Adames was a disappointment, so that helps I’m sure. 

[MrTPlush]

11 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

I’m surprised that there isn’t more angst among Brewer fans about letting Rasmussen get away. He’s turned out to be so good. Seems like a good dude, too.

It’s not like Adames was a disappointment, so that helps I’m sure. 

Probably helps we have had like 5+ ace type pitchers over the years. Main reason it’s never really bothered me.

[Bernies Sponsor]

17 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

From a poker analogy, I think Tampa is saving their chips to go all in on game two. They like their cards better with Rasmussen and rested leverage arms. If you split on the road, it doesn’t really matter how that happens.

This is my read on the situation too. Cash (correctly) anticipated the Brewers bats being cold after the long break, so he figured it wasn’t necessary to use his top arms.

given how close it was, I think he’s justified in his decision. They nearly stole game 1 without using their best guys while facing our nominal ace. Spooky season for the crew 

[homer]

8 minutes ago, Bernies Sponsor said:

This is my read on the situation too. Cash (correctly) anticipated the Brewers bats being cold after the long break, so he figured it wasn’t necessary to use his top arms.

given how close it was, I think he’s justified in his decision. They nearly stole game 1 without using their best guys while facing our nominal ace. Spooky season for the crew 

Maybe but also their bullpen ultimately gave up the deciding run.

[rickh150]

After 20 useful playbacks of Pratt’s foot on/off base, I have seen the light.

His foot was on and then yes it then was off…..

HOWEVER, the front cleat hit back on with ball in glove. You can literally see bag move on top corner! Shoe comes off, yes. But then front  cleat hit back on. You SEE the bag’s top cloth being stretched! 
Check it out!

Replay had it wrong.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I don't think there was any 4d chess going on with the Rays decisions. It was simply throwing the top guys on normal rest.