The Milwaukee Brewers will take on the Tampa Bay Rays for the World Series, and the matchup that already stands out is Abner Uribe against the middle of Tampa Bay's order. Milwaukee is four wins away from the ultimate glory, and the burden of getting there falls in part on a right-hander whose sinker can hit 100 MPH.
That is why Uribe is the name readers are searching now. He was already viewed as the key reliever in the Brewers' NLDS matchup against the Padres, and the same logic carries into this series: Pat Murphy will have the top of the Rays lineup circled, with Yandy Díaz and Junior Caminero the hitters Milwaukee has to neutralize if it is going to win it all.
Uribe has the profile for that assignment. His 100 MPH sinker and big slider combination plays especially well against right-handed hitters, and the numbers back it up. In the 2026 regular season, he held opposing righties to a.136/.213/.182 slash. In the postseason, opposing righties are 4-for-15 against him, and Dodgers right-handed bats were 1-for-6 against him in the NLCS.
But the matchup is not as clean as the raw velocity suggests. Díaz is hitting.373 with a.618 slugging percentage against right-on-right sliders in the regular season and postseason, while Caminero is hitting.248 with a.484 slugging percentage against the same pitch. That matters because Uribe's best weapon is the slider-heavy shape that usually gives him the edge, and these are two of the best right-handed hitters in the game right now.
There is also a lineup wrinkle that could shape how often Uribe sees them. The Rays had two lefties, Jonathan Aranda and Liam Hicks, hitting between Díaz and Caminero in their Game 6 lineup, and that could affect whether the Rays keep the same structure. Milwaukee can lean on Uribe, but it cannot assume the path through Tampa Bay's order will stay the same from one game to the next.
The Brewers and Rays look like similar teams, and that makes the late innings even sharper. Milwaukee is four wins from the World Series title, but the series may turn on whether Uribe can keep Díaz and Caminero from making those right-on-right sliders look ordinary.
