The 2026 World Series shifts to St. Petersburg on Monday for Game 3 between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays. The Brewers narrowly won the first two games and will now look to go up 3-0 in the best-of-seven series, which would make Game 4 a possible elimination game.
The Rays will send ALCS MVP Freddy Peralta to the mound and hope that he can continue his turnaround after a deadline trade from the Mets ended a disastrous stint in New York. The Brewers will counter with Robert Gasser, who pitched five shutout innings against the Dodgers in his last outing in the NLCS.
No team has erased a 2-0 deficit in the World Series since the 1996 New York Yankees. The Rays will try to become the first, and the first step is to win Game 1.
Time: 8 p.m. ET | Date: Monday, Oct. 26
Location: Tropicana Field -- St. Petersburg
TV channel: Fox | Live stream: fubo
Odds (via DraftKings): MIL -115, TB -104 | over/under: 7
Will the Brewers take a 3-0 series lead? Or will the Rays finally get a win and avoid a sweep? CBS Sports will have live updates, highlights and analysis throughout Game 2. Follow along below.
The Brewers can take a commanding 3-0 series lead, in which case the rest of this week is just academic. The Rays can make this a series and get to within 2-1. I'm rooting for the latter just so we have more baseball. I'm not ready for the season to end yet.
The Rays were 55-26 at home this season, good for a .679 winning percentage. Could some familiar grounds be what they need to get back in this series?
After Game 2, our Matt Snyder wrote about how the Rays are giving the Brewers too many opportunities by making mistakes. Kevin Cash thinks so too.
"We've been a very good defensive club all season long. It's kind of showed up certainly in Game 2 where we didn't play our cleanest baseball," the Rays manager said before Game 3 on Monday. "To their credit, they had a lot of traffic on the bases, a lot of long at-bats, but confident we'll bounce back and make the plays we need to make tonight."
Speaking of Peralta, Mike Axisa broke down that midseason trade and why the ex-Brewer got back on track:
Can Freddy Peralta continue his postseason excellence? That and more big questions for Game 3 from Mike Axisa:
This will be the first World Series game played in Tropicana Field since Oct. 23, 2008. Big Game James Shields was the winning pitcher in that one and a youngster by the name of David Price finished things off. BJ Upton got two hits and among those in the RBI column was rookie Evan Longoria.
DH Yandy Díaz
1B Ryan Vilade
LF Chandler Simpson
3B Junior Caminero
2B Ben Williamson
CF Jonny DeLuca
RF Victor Mesa Jr.
C Nick Fortes
SS Taylor Walls
SP Freddy Peralta
LF Jackson Chourio
1B Jake Bauers
DH Christian Yelich
C William Contreras
2B Brice Turang
CF Garrett Mitchell
SS Cooper Pratt
RF Sal Frelick
3B David Hamilton
SP Robert Gasser
ST. PETERSBURG -- A contingent of Brewers fans here started a "let's go Brewers" chant and it was pretty strong. It caused the Rays fans to drown them out with boos and cowbells. Fun scene.
