Is there anything better than weird baseball? Not necessarily those 3 a.m. extra-inning marathons (though sometimes those), but just the inherent understanding that anything can happen.
To honor that beauty, your CBS Sports MLB experts got a little weird and made some bold predictions for this year's World Series, what promises to be a thrilling matchup between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays. For us, bold doesn't mean a big home run or two or an elite reliever being, well, elite. This is about the magic.
Jackson Chourio makes history
Jackson Chourio will pull a Pete Crow-Armstrong/Randy Arozarena and hit a leadoff homer and a walk-off homer in the same game. PCA did it on Aug. 17, and Arozarena did it a few days later on Aug. 22. The leadoff homer/walk-off homer thing has been done only seven times in history and was done only twice from 1958 to 2025; then PCA and Arozarena did it in the same week. Third time's the charm, so let's say Chourio becomes the third player to do it in 2026. The Brewers will be the home team in Games 1 and 2, and, if necessary, Games 6 and 7 as well. It will have to be one of those nights. -- Mike Axisa
Brewers get blanked
Drew Rasmussen is going to throw a no-hitter, though the really, really bold part of this prediction is more that the Brewers are going to get no-hit (one coin, two sides, etc.). We already saw the Rays ace nearly make history in Game 1 of the ALDS before Austin Wells got in the way in so many different ways. This time, Rasmussen will finish the job and the Brewers hitters, so good at making contact and getting on base however they have to, will be completely stymied for the night. Don Larsen's perfect game remains the only World Series no-hitter if you don't count the Astros' group effort in 2022, which I very much do not. Rasmussen will make it two. -- Kate Feldman
Not the roof again
Jackson Chourio ends the World Series in bizarre fashion, hitting a ball that ricochets off the roof at American Family Field, drops into fair territory in left, and skips under the glove of a diving Chandler Simpson for a walk-off hit. Milwaukee wins Game 6, 6–5, to capture the World Series. -- Julian McWilliams
Auto-strike strikes back
One of the games will involve an ABS challenge at the very end, and upon review, a game-ending strike three will be the judgment. I'll avoid the most extreme scenario and resist the temptation to say the entire World Series will end on an ABS challenge, but one of the games between the Brewers and Rays definitely will. It says so right here. This is fine, as any level of such awkwardness and bathos is welcome because it hastens the day when we have full ABS for balls and strikes and stop making the players clean up the umpires' messes on top of everything else they have to think about. -- Dayn Perry
The vulture
l'll say a reliever ends up with the most wins in the series. Maybe that doesn't sound as bold in this day and age, but there shouldn't be many, if any, bullpen games in this series, and I'm talking about someone vulturing wins in the late innings. I'll go specifically with Aaron Ashby. He had 13 wins in the regular season and got another in the NLDS. The Brewers never quit and frequently come from behind, while the Rays have shown a little late-inning bullpen leakiness in the playoffs and Ashby will often absorb multiple innings late for the Brewers. The math is there. -- Matt Snyder
