Rays vs. Brewers live updates: MLB World Series Game 1 predictions, lineups and how to watch New York Times (Online) The Athletic The Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers open the World Series tonight with Game 1. Both teams are chasing their first championship as the seven-game series gets going in Milwaukee. Follow along for coverage from our baseball experts at The Athletic. Join the conversation in our game chat or email live@theathletic.com . GO FURTHER World Series predictions: Our experts pick the winner, MVP and key players No Rays hitter has faced Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski more than three times. The Miz has only one career start against the Rays, and it was in April when he went six innings, allowed two runs and struck out seven. Both runs came on a Yandy Díaz home run. The favorite to win the NL Cy Young Award and Milwaukee's Game 1 starter tonight, Jacob Misiorowski finished his first full season with a league-leading 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts. An All-Star in back-to-back seasons, Misiorowski touched 104.5 mph in a June regular-season start and then hit 104.8 mph against the Padres in the Division Series. In all, Misiorowski has thrown over 1,000 pitches at 100 mph or faster. His October has been decidedly less dazzling. The right-hander has yet to complete a full five innings in either of his two starts, his lack of control leading to stressful innings and high pitch counts. He has maintained his velocity, and there remains an outsized chance that Misiorowski returns to form when Milwaukee needs him most. The Rays are defying expectations a bit by going with Nick Martinez as their Game 1 starter . Rays ace Drew Rasmussen started ALCS Game 5 on Sunday, and the team is giving him an extra day of rest to start in Game 2, so it will be the veteran Martinez against the presumptive National League Cy Young favorite , Jacob Misiorowski . Listed are the regular season numbers for tonight's Game 1 starters. GO FURTHER Rays tab Nick Martinez to start Game 1 of World Series against Brewers As for the Brewers, while the faces are the same, the order has shifted a bit. NLCS MVP Jake Bauers goes from the four-spot to the two-hole. In 25 career games batting from that spot, Bauers has an .854 OPS, with seven extra-base hits. Christian Yelich , who has a career .744 OPS against Nick Martinez, goes to third in the order. David Hamilton , who made noise from the bottom of the order, will remain at third base over Joey Ortiz. The @Brewers starting lineup for Game 1 of the #WorldSeries ! pic.twitter.com/A0veJYyE5u Here's the lineup that the Tampa Bay Rays will trot out for Game 1. The top of the order remains the same. Liam Hicks , Tampa Bay's other major trade deadline acquisition, gets the start against Jacob Misiorowski over Nick Fortes . Ben Williamson will start at second over Richie Palacios , giving manager Kevin Cash a late inning substitution in his back pocket. Here is the Game 1 starting lineup for @RaysBaseball ! #WorldSeries pic.twitter.com/JhBVLzc07Q In baseball, October is synonymous with the World Series, but the most significant baseball event on this date, Oct. 23, but was Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey announcing in 1945 that he'd signed infielder Jackie Robinson . Of course, this date has also seen its share of postseason magic. On this date in 1993, Joe Carter hit the second World Series-ending home run in history, a ninth-inning homer off Mitch Williams that secured the Toronto Blue Jays' second consecutive championship. Here's the schedule for the 2026 World Series – all games will start at 8 p.m. ET and air on Fox. *If necessary For the second straight year, Milwaukee was baseball's best team. This time, the Brewers made it count in October. Milwaukee won 103 games and a fourth consecutive NL Central title, then rode dominant pitching and late Game 2 heroics from star Jackson Chourio past the Padres in the NLDS, with the four-game series turning for good on Chourio's walk-off single against dominant San Diego closer Mason Miller. Then the Brewers avenged their sweep at the hands of the Dodgers in the 2025 NLCS in the best possible fashion — by sweeping an even more loaded Los Angeles team. That sweep secured Milwaukee's first-ever National League pennant and first trip to the World Series since 1982 , when the Brewers were in the American League. Tampa Bay was the only team to really show anything resembling dominance during the regular season, winning 98 games en route to the team's fifth AL East Division title and first since 2021. The Rays did so with a formula familiar to those who watched David Price and Evan Longoria and Tyler Glasnow and Randy Arozarena before them — a dominant ace who saved his best stuff for October in Drew Rasmussen , an electric slugger in the middle of the order in Junior Caminero and a shrewdly built roster around them. The Rays then promptly swept the team with the next-best record in the American League, the New York Yankees, in the wild-card round, led by a dominant Game 1 start from Rasmussen, who took a no-hitter into the eighth inning. Tampa Bay then overcame a 2-1 series deficit to the Cleveland Guardians in the ALCS, winning in six games. Freddy Peralta, who turned his season around after a midyear trade from the Mets to the Rays, won ALCS MVP for Tampa Bay. Who is going to win tonight's Game 1 to get the advantage in the World Series? Who is going to claim the championship? We'd love to hear from you. Join the conversation in our game chat or email live@theathletic.com . We will incorporate the best contributions into our coverage. The World Series begins tonight in Milwaukee, but there is plenty of more action going on in the sports world. The college football, NFL and Premier League seasons are rolling along, while the NBA is underway, along with the NHL and the WNBA Finals. We will have all that, and more, covered at The Athletic. Get your subscription here to make sure you can read all of our terrific coverage. Tonight's game will be played at American Family Field in Milwaukee. It has been the Brewers' home since 2001 and has a capacity of 41,900. Tonight's game will be broadcast on Fox and will stream on Fox One . Game 1 of the World Series is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET, which is 7 p.m. local time in Milwaukee. Hello, baseball fans and welcome to our live coverage of Game 1 of the World Series! Judging only the team's records, this should have been the World Series matchup we expected all along. Instead, it feels more like the World Series we secretly wanted but didn't think we'd actually get. The Brewers and Rays were the top seeds in each league, but they are also small-market teams that had to take to down the Dodgers and Yankees to get here. Each franchise is trying to win its first championship, and what they lack in payroll and star power, they make up for in excitement and likability. The Brewers and Rays finished first and second in batting average this season. The Brewers hit the second-fewest home runs but scored the second-most runs. The Rays had the fewest strikeouts and the second-most stolen bases. Each team puts the ball in play, runs the bases well, and has a handful of guys who can hit the long ball. And each franchise is known for its pitching, which has been as-advertised the postseason. The Brewers have a 2.03 ERA in the playoffs, the Rays a 2.59. This isn't necessarily the World Series we predicted, but it might be the World Series we deserve. We'll have all the action covered throughout the night on The Athletic.