MLB WORLD SERIES: RAYS VS BREWERS

October 22, 2026

Kevin Cash

American Family Field

Tampa Bay Rays

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. When determining your Game 1 starter, obviously it seems like Drew Rasmussen would be the play, but in reference to a Ken Rosenthal article, perhaps having him go on an extra day of rest and having Nick Martinez start and push it back that way so Freddy Peralta starts at home, what's your line of thinking when determining your rotation for this particular seven-game series?

KEVIN CASH: You covered a lot of it. We prioritized Drew getting an extra day. He's had a pretty thick workload here. We've relied on him heavily. We know when he takes the ball, we're trying to get the full pitch allotment out of him.

With Freddy, Freddy's workload in the CS was unique in that we did ask him to come out of the bullpen for an inning in between starts and felt like how much of a toll does that take? I don't know. I thought he threw a really good ballgame in Game 6, but I did think towards the end of that game, the velocities and stuff remained the same, the command took a little bit of a dip.

When Nick pitches, we win. So excited to hand Nick the ballgame 1, and we'll go from there.

Q. When going up against Jacob Misiorowski, obviously -- there's obvious traits that make him difficult, but how do you address to your guys on how to approach that in such a big setting, Game 1 of the World Series, with a guy whose stuff is just nearly impossible to hit for a lot of guys?

KEVIN CASH: Everybody is going to be pretty amped up. We're going to try to do everything we can to stay within ourselves and stay in the zone. As soon as you start expanding out of the zone with a guy as special and talented as Misiorowski is, it really works in his favor.

To have those lengthy at-bats, try to get the fastball down, that's very much easier said than done because he's got so much ride and carry through the zone. I know they're actively talking about that now.

Q. Going through this now a second time, I know the first time around, totally different environment and the way that things were handled. Is it helpful knowing that you've kind of been here before and know what to expect of these games?

KEVIN CASH: Yeah, maybe a little bit. The 2020 World Series was kind of a blur, the whole postseason was a blur. I'm a heck of a lot happier we're in this situation now coming out on the other side of that.

Those games, they were intense, there was a lot of anxiety in them, but I felt that same intensity and anxiety in the ALCS just two or three days ago.

Excited to go and watch our guys do their thing in the next week to ten days.

Q. Can I ask you to talk a bit about your catcher Liam, what he has meant to the team and how big of an acquisition that was?

KEVIN CASH: Huge acquisition at the time. I said it earlier this week, when we acquired Liam, you could probably put his triple slash line and Jonathan Aranda's over each other, and they really just mirrored each other. The home runs, the on base, the battle average, how they got there was very similar.

He lengthened out our lineup quite a bit. I think maybe as special as his offensive numbers, defensive side of the ball, he's worked so hard to get back into being an everyday, routine catcher. When we acquired him, he had taken a little more of a DH, first base role, catching once a week. He got his legs underneath him. He worked very hard on getting rid of the ball a little quicker with the caught stealings.

Most importantly, he just entrenched himself in the information that was being provided to him from Kyle Snyder, Jorge Moncada, and Tomas Francisco, about understanding and learning our pitchers on the fly. That's not an easy thing to do. When you're joining a team in the middle of a pennant race, you don't want to be interruptive or disruptive. He was nothing like that, he was all ears. Now I think he's got full confidence and comfort in handling our pitching staff.

Q. Only Yandy and I think Matz a long time ago have World Series experience. You guys have handled the New York situation, Cleveland situation. Do you think this stage will be any different for them?

KEVIN CASH: I don't think so other than we're getting closer to the end here. The magnitude of these games, as much as they were from the DS to the CS, they're even elevated now. I really have been incredibly impressed with the way our entire roster has handled the intensity of all of these games that we've played.

I know they're excited, and they'll be pretty amped up. Tomorrow will probably be really, really loud in the other team's favor, but we'll take that all in and know that we're going to return the favor when we get back to The Trop for Game 3.

Q. As long as you've been in the organization with the Rays, you've seen a lot of talented people come through there and been approached by other organizations as they've moved on. What's kind of your perspective on seeing Matt and Erik Neander match up in this series, and the depth of talent the Rays have seen around baseball over the last 15, 20 years?

KEVIN CASH: Yeah, there's no doubt. It's an incredibly special group here, going back to Andrew Friedman, his tree, if you will, is impressive, just the way he impacted people. And then Erik being here for 20 years and the people that have left, even since I've been here for 11, 12 years, there's been a lot of great baseball minds that have now gone on and taken on their own clubs and done a lot of special things. Matt Arnold is definitely no different.

Q. The talent with Freddy Peralta speaks for itself. Everybody knows how talented he is. Obviously an interesting first half of the season for him, but it seems like the Rays have once again unlocked something to get him back to Fastball Freddy. Nobody knows there better than the Brewers obviously. What is it like managing him, and why is he having the level of success that he's having again?

KEVIN CASH: I'm glad you talked about it. He had a unique three months, in my opinion. He had a unique Major League career. His three months or four months in New York probably didn't go the way he wanted or the way he performed his first five years.

Getting to manage him, him walking in the door, I got a phone call from Willy Adames saying you're getting one of the best guys in baseball. Come in here, he's got a smile from ear to ear on his face. I give Freddy a lot of credit for being a good pitcher and being vulnerable enough to say I wasn't comfortable doing some things, and I want to get back to my strengths. He guided that through the entire two months he's been with us, and he took off in September and has continued to take off in October.

Q. You alluded to this a little bit after the clincher. Is there a pride in the way you guys play, and to some extent the Brewers play, in doing things the right way, the base to base and using speed and not like the home run-hitting teams that have dominated the game some of the last few years?

KEVIN CASH: There's pride in doing everything you can to win games. If we had a club that was built with a bunch of boppers, we probably wouldn't be bunting and stealing bases either, but our club's built differently in comparison to some other clubs.

This group here does everything on a nightly basis just to win the game, and that's kind of what has stood out. From afar -- I don't know the Brewers that well. We saw them in April for three games. It certainly seems like they do very similar things with their lineup, their construction, and the athleticism that they show on a nightly basis.

Q. Unrelated, the long home run trots by a couple of your guys and their guys, so different from your playing days. What is your take on those?

KEVIN CASH: The game is different. It's in a different place, different state. I think that -- you don't want to cross the line of showing up the other team. Always show respect for that, but they're exciting moments, and I want our guys to enjoy them.

Q. With Chandler Simpson, it seems like he's really refined his all-around game this year. What has he just meant to the identity of your team? What does he add to your clubhouse? How would you describe that?

KEVIN CASH: I think Chandler is maybe one of the most improved players in baseball defensively. Credit him. Credit Corey Dickerson for working with him. And credit the rest of our outfielders, Cedric Mullins and Jonny DeLuca really taking him under his wing. Chandler's steps and his jumps and reads, he always had the closing speed, but now the route efficiency he shows and the jumps he gets on balls, I think he's in Gold Glove consideration in left field.

Offensively it's a different dynamic. It's a throwback dynamic you just don't see every day. What stands out and impresses me most about Chandler is he knows his game and himself as well as any player I've ever been around, first-year player or ten-year veteran, and he's going to work on that craft.

I used to hear stories about Tony Gwynn and Pete Rose, their batting practices and how they never got off the L screen, it was peppering drives up the middle. Chandler, to his credit, he never gets off the long drive to shortstop. He's just trying to pepper line drives the entire batting practice.

Q. Understanding the personnel, obviously different, but the last time you were in the World Series and this group of players, are there similarities, differences in the way you guys play the game?

KEVIN CASH: This group, we were locked in in COVID, right? We'd better get along, and if we couldn't get along, we need to find a way to get along. That was a very close-knit group in 2020. This group is just as close and didn't have the constraints or the walls put up where we had to spend all that time together. This group enjoys spending time together.

Last night we flew in. I think Nick had a booked room to go to a steakhouse. With all that's going on and families and tickets and just the hoopla, they still made the time to, hey, we're going to go out to dinner as a team like we've done all season long.

Q. To sort of follow up, your team bunts a lot. You haven't always bunted a lot. Where did that come from? Did you talk about it out loud in Spring Training? What kind of impact can it have in a World Series? If it has that impact, do you think you could make bunting cool again?

KEVIN CASH: I think we already have made bunting cool. Where did it come from? It came from a lot of discussions and a lot of research from our R&D group that really poured themselves into understanding the value of, not just the sacrifice, but putting pressure on the defense via trying to bunt hit.

When you have guys that can get down the line at a certain speed, to try to maximize it. Hitting in today's game is really tough, and the way our roster is built, we've got four guys on a given night that have well above average speed and are good bunters, didn't want to take that away from them.

But I understand, five years ago we were probably opposed to the bunt, and the sacrifice of giving yourself up just to move 90 feet, I think we've done some deeper digging and realize maybe there's a little bit more value to that than what we understood or appreciated five, six years ago.

Q. To follow up on that, the flexibility that requires from yourself and the coaching staff, how do you feel like you guys have kind of evolved in your thinking and maybe from when you were last here on the stage six years ago?

KEVIN CASH: I think the entire staff prides themselves on being eager to learn and learn new information. There's a lot of information out there. It seems like it evolves year to year. That's on the pitching side, the hitting side, the in-game decision side.

We're fortunate as a group that we've got so many really bright people that can look at the big picture, they can look at 10,000 games and decipher where these decisions might come into play and could help us win one game.

To have the staff that's willing to be open-minded and maybe take those risks at times has allowed us to find some success.

Q. You're a Tampa-born guy managing your hometown team in the World Series. What does it mean for you to manage your team -- just to manage your team and to get all the way to this point in the World Series?

KEVIN CASH: I said it when I was hired and got the job many years ago. There's 30 of these jobs out there. To be able to say -- that's special in itself. To say that you get to do it in your hometown, I'm incredibly fortunate. We want to do everything we can to continue to represent Tampa Bay in the best possible way.

It's been a unique couple seasons with the Rays just given what took place last year, playing at Steinbrenner Field and then moving back into The Trop, and to watch how our fans have responded. The DS Game 1 and Game 6 against the Guardians, that's the loudest I've ever heard The Trop, maybe the loudest I ever heard a baseball park.

Q. Nick hasn't gone as deep in the postseason as Raz and Freddy have. Does that play any part in the decision that you're coming into Game 1 with a completely clean slate of bullpen pitchers?

KEVIN CASH: I think it helps. It always helps to have the fresher bullpen in theory, but I love the way Nick has competed. The other day, he came out of the game and was going, well, we're fortunate we had Freddy sitting in the bullpen. Their lineup turned over the third time, and we had 2, 3, 4 coming up. It felt like that was the time to get Freddy in the ball game to see if we could shut down the Guardian offense.

It feels to me that Nick has really settled in. He made some adjustments after the first inning. He was pitching in pretty cold weather in Cleveland. Made some adjustments, he got the strike throwing where he wanted, the cutter gone, and the change-up -- I don't even know, somebody told me he changed his grip in between innings, between the first and second -- I'm glad I didn't know that in the moment.

Whatever grip he goes with, I'm confident and trust that Nick is going to go and find a way to navigate through that lineup a couple times.