The 2026 World Series opens on Friday, 23 October, at American Family Field in Milwaukee, where the Brewers, who won 103 games in the regular season, host the Tampa Bay Rays, who won 98. The Brewers swept the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-0 in the National League Championship Series, clinching with a 6-4 win in Los Angeles on 15 October, and the Rays beat the Cleveland Guardians 4-2 in the American League Championship Series, clinching with a 7-3 win in Game 6 at Tropicana Field on 19 October.
The schedule has Game 1 and Game 2 in Milwaukee on 23 and 24 October, with Games 3 and 4 at Tropicana Field in Tampa Bay on Monday, 26 October, and Tuesday, 27 October. Game 5, if it is needed, is also in Tampa Bay on 28 October, and Games 6 and 7, if they are needed, return to Milwaukee on 30 and 31 October. The Brewers have home-field advantage, since Game 1 is at their ballpark and they would host a seventh game, and they earned it with a record of 103-59 against the Rays’ 98-64, a gap of five wins.
The case for the Brewers starts with how they reached the series. They beat a Dodgers team that had won 100 games in the regular season in four straight games, and the clincher on 15 October was a 6-4 win in which David Hamilton went 2 for 4 with a home run, two runs batted in and two runs scored, even though the Dodgers had scored four runs in the second inning, with Shohei Ohtani hitting a home run and driving in three. The Brewers’ last game was on 15 October, which gives them eight days before Game 1, against four days for the Rays, whose last game was on 19 October. Brice Turang drove in 100 runs and Jake Bauers hit 26 home runs in the regular season, and Jackson Chourio hit .291, according to the regular-season leaders listed for the series.
The case for the Rays rests on how they won the American League series. Cleveland led 2-1 after Game 3, a 3-2 win in which Petey Halpin hit a two-run homer for Cleveland, and the Rays then won the last three games by 7-3, 3-1 and 7-3, scoring 17 runs against seven. Yandy Diaz hit a home run in Game 4 and another in Game 6, and in Game 6 Junior Caminero added a two-run homer to his regular-season totals of 42 home runs and 101 runs batted in, the most on the team. Chandler Simpson hit .306 in the regular season, Freddy Peralta threw 5 1/3 innings in the clincher, and Drew Rasmussen pitched seven innings in Game 5 for a 3-1 win. In Game 5 Simpson went 2 for 3 with a double, a run and a stolen base, Diaz went 3 for 5 with a double and Jonathan Aranda drove in a run, so the offence scored in each of the first three innings. A team that has won three games in a row to close a series arrives with momentum, even if it has less rest.
The two clubs finished their league championship series in different ways, Milwaukee in four games and Tampa Bay in six, and the schedule gives the series a long runway. If one side wins the first four games, the series ends on Tuesday, 27 October, and if it goes the distance Game 7 is on Saturday, 31 October, at Milwaukee, the home of the team with the better record. The Rays will have to win at least one of the first two games on the road to take control, because Games 3, 4 and 5 are at Tropicana Field, where they closed out Cleveland with a 7-3 win.
Image: American Family Field in Milwaukee, home of the Brewers (file photo). Photo: DiscoA340 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
