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The small-market World Series has provided plenty of entertainment through two games.
We’ve seen a pair of one-run games go down to the wire already and as Game 3 shifts to Tropicana Field Monday night we can expect chess match.
The Brewers will send arguably their hottest pitcher, Robert Gasser, to the mound for a crucial road start. The Rays will counter with their hottest pitcher, ALCS MVP Freddy Peralta, who will need to keep up his postseason form to get Tampa back into the series.
Oddsmakers have left the Rays for dead based on the series odds. FanDuel Sportsbook lists the Brewers as -660 favorites to win the series entering Game 3 and the Rays are +500. For Game 3, the Rays are -120 favorites with the Over/Under sitting at 6.5 total runs.
Brewers vs. Rays Game 3 prediction
It’s understandable that books have so much faith in the Brewers to close out this series. It has been 30 years since a team has come back from an 0-2 deficit in the World Series and only 10 teams have ever done it.
They Brewers continue to prove that they can pick up a win regardless of the circumstances. When they had a lead in the top of the ninth inning in Game 1, they were able to absorb an overturned double-play that scored a run and survive a late Rays rally.
When they trailed by four runs in the bottom of the first inning of Game 2, they wasted no time chipping away at the lead with runs in the first, fourth, sixth and seventh.
Both offenses have been aggressive early and that trend should continue in Game 3. Tampa and Milwaukee both ranked among the top-10 MLB teams in first-inning batting average, on-base percentage and RBI in the regular season.
The Rays have been the best first-inning scoring team in the postseason and the Brewers have already tagged Tampa’s pitchers for four first-inning runs in two games. The Rays entered this series with their rotation looking like their biggest strength and the Brewers attacked that by jumping on their pitchers early and not allowing them to get comfortable.
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The Rays will be desperate to get off to a strong start at home and avoid a dreaded 0-3 hole in the World Series. Yandy Diaz still doesn’t have a hit in this series, but I don’t expect he’ll be kept down for long, especially at home where he had .318/.389/.531 splits during the regular season.
Despite the early scoring we’ve seen in this series, sportsbooks have the yes option for the first inning runs prop at plus-money. I’ll grab that at +110 and expect even more fireworks at the start of Game 3.
The Pick: Yes run first inning (+110, Caesars)
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Malik Smith has been immersed in the sports betting industry since 2017. He’s a data nerd with a particular focus on the NBA and combat sports. He spends his weeknights in the winter looking for edges on plus-money NBA player props.