Drew Rasmussen will start Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night, and he will do it in the ballpark that traded him away. The Tampa Bay Rays right-hander, dealt by Milwaukee in May 2021, gets the ball at American Family Field against Jacob Misiorowski, in what may be the most emotionally loaded opener in recent Fall Classic history.
First pitch is Friday at 7 pm CT, and the matchup is a study in baseball irony. Rasmussen, an American League Cy Young finalist, was a sixth-round pick who posted a 5.01 ERA in 32.1 innings for the Brewers before they shipped him to Tampa for shortstop Willy Adames. Adames went on to put up 14.0 bWAR with 107 home runs in 548 games for Milwaukee, then walked after 2024 for a $182 million Giants deal. Both sides won the trade. Only one side gets to start Game 1.
The breakout Milwaukee missed
Rasmussen’s 2025 breakout and subsequent extension turned him into the ace the Brewers never got to keep. He and Freddy Peralta, another ex-Brewer, started five of the Rays’ seven postseason wins, a rotation built in part from Milwaukee’s own farm system. The deal also swapped relievers Trevor Richards and J.P. Feyereisen, footnotes now in a trade that will define this Series.
The personal stakes are real. Players remember being traded, and starting a World Series in the park that gave up on you is the kind of narrative athletes carry onto the mound. The Brewers’ fans remember too; the reception on Friday will be one of the night’s subplots.
The bigger duel
Rasmussen against Misiorowski, the 105 mph rookie who should win the National League Cy Young, is the battle of baseball’s best young arms. SI’s matchup takeaways frame the traded-pitcher subplot as the one other organizations will study, and Game 1 is where it starts.
Sports is full of comebacks, from MacKinnon bloodied but unbowed to Guo Hanyu’s comeback of a lifetime. Rasmussen’s is quieter but no less complete: from a 5.01 ERA castoff to a Game 1 World Series starter. On Friday, he gets to show his old club exactly what it gave away.
