How the Rays’ Home Stadium Helped the Brewers Win the World Series

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Did the Rays’ own ballpark contribute to the end of their season? It’s a fair question after Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski suddenly found his “A” fastball in the World Series Game 5 clincher with the help of Tropicana Field.

The Milwaukee pitching coaches, Chris Hook and Jim Henderson, had been concerned for weeks. Misiorowski was tiring. His fastball was losing its late life. The velocity and spin were fine. The problem was its “rise”—the way its spin fights gravity to keep the baseball from sinking less than the hitter expects.

When Misiorowski is right, his fastball defies the drop of a theoretical pitch with no spin by 15.3 inches. The MLB average for such a measurement, called Induced Vertical Break, is 15.6 inches.

Entering September, Misiorowski had only two games all year with an IVB as low as 14.6, including one game at Coors Field, a notorious IVB killer. But in his next eight starts, through World Series Game 1 as he worked 50 innings past his previous year’s workload, it happened six times.

Hook and Henderson worked with Misiorowski before the World Series on not sinking into his legs so much and moving faster through his delivery. But Game 1 was not much better. Misiorowski remained at a 14.6 IVB with the lowest release point of his year.

Why is IVB a big deal? A high-IVB fastball fights gravity to ride above a hitter’s swing path. Less IVB means it sinks into the plane of the barrel. For instance, MLB hitters this year batted .270 against four-seamers with less than 16 IVB. But against fastballs that reached 16 IVB or better, they hit .224.

Entering World Series Game 5, Hook was no longer worried. Misiorowski was carrying himself with confidence and ease Hook had not seen for weeks. Mostly, though, Hook was sure the life would be back on Miz’s heater for one obvious reason: the game was being played at Tropicana Field, the secret sauce to IVB.

“I’ve been coming here for eight years,” Hook told me before the game, “and I’ve never known anyone who didn’t have better vert pitching here.”

I asked Milwaukee hitting coach Dan Vogelbach about this phenomenon.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Everybody knows it. That’s why for years the Rays have had over-the-top power pitchers with a big breaking ball. The mound is a little higher here.”

MLB regularly measures mounds to assure they conform to rules. But whatever is causing it, Tropicana Field makes four-seamers play up like nowhere else. To Tampa Bay’s season-ending regret, it happened again in Game 5.

Suddenly, Misiorowski had the greatest carry on his fastball in almost four months—a 16.3 IVB, his fourth highest of the year. It was a stunning turnaround. He wasn’t throwing any harder, and the ball wasn’t spinning any faster. But as far as its carry, it was the best fastball he had since July 2.

Misiorowski threw 57 fastballs in Game 5. The Rays barreled up none of them.

He was brilliant before having to leave two outs into the sixth inning with a leg cramp. He became only the fourth starting pitcher to win a World Series clincher by allowing no runs and as few as four baserunners, joining Ralph Terry (1962), Tom Glavine (1995) and Derek Lowe (2004). At 24, Misiorowski is the youngest to throw such a shutdown clincher.

“The fastball was good enough,” Hook said. “They couldn’t square it up, so that was really, really special.

“He’s had an A game most of the year. This past four weeks probably is, I would say, B minus game. Tonight was probably in that A range again.”

The effect of Tropicana Field on IVB is measurable. First, let’s look at the carry on Miz’s fastball in the regular season, his first three postseason starts (all at Milwaukee) and World Series Game 5 (at Tropicana Field):

Misiorowski Fastball, 2026

I’ve highlighted the most obvious differences: his fastball got more than two inches more rise in St. Petersburg than it had in Milwaukee and hitters could not barrel it up after feasting on it in Milwaukee.

But let’s broaden the lens to see if this phenomenon applies to the other Milwaukee starters in the World Series:

Induced Vertical Break, 2026 Regular and Postseason

Each one got a boost.

Let’s go to an even bigger sample—a 6,851-pitch sample. The Rays play half their games at the Trop. Do their four-seam fastballs play up at home? The answer is an unequivocal yes.

Rays Four-seam Fastballs, 2026 Regular and Postseason

Whoa. Now that’s a big difference.

How much of an outlier is the Trop when it comes to late life on fastballs? Here you go:

Highest Average IVB by Ballpark, 2026

Indoor baseball is clearly good for extra ride on four-seamers. (The Rays’ 17.5 home IVB this year is half an inch more than last year while playing outdoors in Tampa, 17.0.) The average MLB IVB is 15.6. Every major league ballpark is within one inch of the average except three outliers: the Trop (+1.6), loanDepot Park in Miami (+1.5) and Coors Field in Colorado (-3.5).

What Coors Field is for hitters, Tropicana Field is for four-seam pitchers.

Misiorowski found his fastball in the clincher with the help of the Rays’ home park. Hook saw it coming.