A ring deferred

Happy Wednesday! And hopefully you managed to get at least some sleep overnight. The Brewers were three outs from a World Series sweep last night — err, this morning — then watched Tampa Bay overcome a 3-2 deficit in the 12th for a dramatic walk-off win that postponed Milwaukee’s coronation… for at least one more day. We’ll look at how the Rays survived, why the comeback is still a big-time long-shot, and what changes if they can force this series back to Milwaukee. Plus, Connor Hellebuyck finally debuted between the pipes for New Jersey, the Knicks averted bad defending-champ history by finally getting in the win column, and the T-Wolves got bad news about Anthony Edwards. Here’s what else we’re watching today:

The Main Events

All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game

MLB:
⚾🏆 World Series: Brewers (59%) at Rays (41%) - Game 5, 8 p.m. (FOX) 🚨
⚾🏆 World Series title check-in: Brewers 91% to win 

WNBA:
🏀🏆 WNBA Finals: No games. (Off-day - G6 is Thurs. 10/29)
🏀🏆 WNBA title check-in: Valkyries 70% to win 

NBA:
🏀 76ers (64%) at Pacers (36%) - 7 p.m. (ESPN)
🏀 Thunder (67%) at Mavericks (33%) - 9:30 p.m. (ESPN)
🏀 Lakers (64%) at Clippers (36%) - 10:30 p.m. (FanDuel Sports Network / Local)
🏀🏆 NBA title check-in: Spurs 23% to win

NHL:
🏒 Flyers (32%) at Capitals (68%) - 7:30 p.m. (TNT)
🏒 Flames (34%) at Oilers (66%) - 8:30 p.m. (Sportsnet)
🏒 Devils (39%) at Avalanche (61%) - 9 p.m. (Altitude / MSG)
🏒🏆 Stanley Cup check-in: Avalanche/Oilers 11% to win

Football:
🏈 Kennesaw State (45%) at Middle Tennessee (55%) - 7 p.m. (CBS Sports Network)
🏈 Jacksonville State (59%) at New Mexico State (41%) - 8 p.m. (ESPN2)
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: 49ers 15% to win the NFL title
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Georgia 17% to win the national title 

Soccer:
⚽ Carabao Cup: Brighton (33%) at Manchester City (67%) - 3:45 p.m. (Paramount+)
⚽🏆 Champions League check-in: FC Barcelona 24% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 69% to win
⚽🏆 Europa League check-in: SL Benfica 18% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Nashville SC 20% to win MLS Cup
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: San Diego Wave FC 27% to win

Rays of hope

With the Milwaukee Brewers on the verge of their coronation as 2026 World Series champions, the Tampa Bay Rays had other ideas on Tuesday night — and into the wee hours of Wednesday morning.

Despite Milwaukee taking a 3-2 lead in the top of the 12th inning on rookie Cooper Pratt’s solo home run, Tampa Bay battled back in the bottom of the 12th with their season on the line. Junior Caminero reached on an error by Brewers 3B Joey Ortiz; Liam Hicks and Jonny DeLuca both singled to help score the tying run against Brewer lefty Shane Drohan; Chandler Simpson turned a failed bunt try into another single; and finally, Ben Williamson singled home pinch-runner Nick Fortes for the 4-3 walk-off win.

This was much more the kind of game we were anticipating between these two teams going into the series than the ugly 10-1 Brewer blowout that gave Milwaukee its 3-0 series lead going into Tuesday’s proceedings. In the prediction markets, the odds for the teams never really strayed far from 60-40 at most (if not just 50-50) until Pratt’s HR a few minutes after midnight in the East, and they snapped from a peak of 87% for the Brew Crew to 100% for Tampa Bay within about a 20-minute span early Wednesday morning.

Where does that leave us now? Well, as we noted yesterday — and we’ll just re-print the chart for fun — only four historical teams out of 25 who trailed the World Series 3-0 even pulled off what the Rays just managed to do, avoiding the sweep and forcing a Game 5. Tampa Bay will go down as at least the fifth team ever to do that:

But the comeback trail remains daunting, to say the least. The Rays depleted much of their pitching staff Tuesday — they used seven different hurlers — in order to even survive long enough to play another day, and now they’ll go into Game 5 against Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski, the runaway NL Cy Young favorite, without a clear idea of who’ll be taking the mound. Tampa Bay will be at home, but traders are giving Milwaukee about a 60-40 edge to close out the series in 5 games.

And whether that happens or not — remember, even making it to a sixth game would be historic for Tampa, and a 40% shot at that is impressively high — the Brewers remain in control of the series overall. The market dipped their title odds from 96% yesterday… to 91% today. So they’re not worried.

But to paraphrase Kevin Millar in the Red Sox’s 2004 ALCS comeback from down 3-0 against the Yankees: “Don’t let the Rays win tonight!” If Tampa Bay is able to run up Misiorowski’s pitch count early (he’s thrown no more than 5 innings in any postseason start) and scratch out another home win to make the series 3-2 heading into ace Drew Rasmussen’s Game 6 start — if he isn’t called upon earlier than that — anything could happen from there.

Either way, it’s clear that the Rays are at least going to make the Brewers earn the coronation we all thought was coming last night/earlier this morning.

Devil in the details

After a prolonged stand-off with his former team, the Winnipeg Jets, forced a trade to New Jersey last Friday, Connor Hellebuyck finally made his Devils debut Tuesday night — and immediately looked like the kind of goalie New Jersey has spent years trying to find. Hellebuyck stopped 17 of 18 shots in a 5-1 win over Dallas, a nice first step for a team that ranked just 19th in both save percentage and my Adjusted Goals Above Replacement (GAR) metric last season. In fact, in the 16 completed seasons since 2011, the Devils have had only two Top-10 showings in net by Adjusted GAR against 12 seasons of 19th or worse; Hellebuyck, meanwhile, produced six seasons worth at least 23.0 Adjusted GAR (and five of at least 31.5) from 2018-25, including a league-best 44.8 in 2024-25. New Jersey obviously isn’t getting the second coming of prime Martin Brodeur on the basis of one game, but after years of trying to find Marty’s successor in net, they may finally have a goalie capable of playing at that level again.

What else we’re reading

Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.

🏀 “It's Too Soon for This Jaylen Brown Celtics Drama” by Andrew Unterberger
🏈 “The Big 12 is imploding” by Brendan Farrell
⚾ “The World Series is now the late fall classic” by Mark Kolier
💰 “Mark Walter’s potential sale of the Los Angeles Sparks could rock women’s sports” by Katie McInerney
🏈 “Has Caleb Williams Arrived?” by Judah Fortgang

Next on deck…

Thursday (10/29)
🏈 Thursday Night Football: Panthers at Packers
⚾🏆 World Series: No games. (Game 6 set for Friday)
🏀🏆 WNBA Finals: Valkyries at Dream, Game 6 🚨
🏀 NBA: Cavaliers at Hawks
🏒 NHL: Blackhawks at Red Wings
⚽ Soccer: Serie A: Atalanta at Fiorentina

Friday (10/30)
🏈 CFB: Baylor at UCF
⚾🏆 World Series: Rays at Brewers, Game 6 (if necessary) 🚨
🏀🏆 WNBA Finals: No games. (Off-day)
🏀 NBA: Lakers at Warriors
🏒 NHL: Devils at Golden Knights
⚽ La Liga: Villarreal vs. Espanyol

Saturday (10/31) - Happy Halloween! 🎃
🏈 CFB: #2 Ohio State at USC
🏈 CFB: #22 Arizona at #13 Texas Tech
🏈 CFB: #17 Florida vs. #3 Georgia (in Atlanta)
⚾🏆 World Series: Rays at Brewers, Game 7 (if necessary) 🚨
🏀🏆 WNBA Finals: Dream at Valkyries, Game 7 (if necessary) 🚨
🏀 NBA: Thunder at Rockets
🏒 NHL: Maple Leafs at Canucks
⚽ Premier League: Chelsea at Manchester United
🥊 MMA: UFC Fight Night: Moicano vs. Nolan
🥊 Boxing: Canelo Alvarez vs. Christian Mbilli