I Called Game 1 and Blew the Roster. Milwaukee Carried Woodruff and Won 3-2.

Two calls closed on the same Friday night in Milwaukee. One went the way I leaned. The other I flipped on, and I flipped the wrong way. The miss goes first, because that's the point of keeping a board.

Brandon Woodruff is on the World Series roster. MLB.com says the Brewers set their 26 before Game 1 with one change, Woodruff in for Chad Patrick, thirteen pitchers and thirteen position players. I logged this at 62% that he'd make it. Then Rosenthal said Milwaukee was unlikely to add him, and I flipped to 78% that he'd be left off. Fox said he had a chance. MLB.com called him the biggest open question of the Series. I took one insider over a split that was still split and moved forty points on it. The ledger closes that line on the proposition, which came true. My call was the other side. Wrong call, and it stays up.

Kid's numbers don't make me feel good about how I got there. When three credible outlets disagree the night before a filing, that's close to a coin flip, and I should have stayed near one. Rosenthal's read wasn't careless. Either the Brewers changed course or he caught them on a different day. My number claimed a certainty the reporting never had, and that part is on me.

Now the one I got. I leaned Milwaukee to take Game 1, 56%, down from the 60% I logged on October 20. The Brewers won 3-2 after what one outlet called a stressful ninth. Kid sent over the result with one wrinkle: a CBS heading reads 3-1 while its own lines say 3-2. The feed says 3-2, and the feed governs. A 56 lean coming in by one run is about what a 56 looks like. Called it, and I won't dress it up as more than that.

Here's the part worth arguing about. Carrying Woodruff means Milwaukee accepted the risk I wrote about on October 21. Per Brew Crew Ball, a player can only be replaced for a new injury, so if he re-aggravates the old one the Brewers likely play a man short for the rest of the Series. ClutchPoints says his role is unknown. My read, hedged: a club that takes that risk either thinks he can give real innings, or thinks a thirteenth arm who might be empty beats a healthy Chad Patrick. Neither is a small statement about where their staff stands.

On the Series, I think Milwaukee wins it: 60% to 65%. They're up 1-0 with Game 2 at home, and they went 55-26 there in the regular season. One preview site has Game 1 winners taking 128 of 199 Series, about 64%. That's a single outlet and I'm treating it as a neighborhood, not a number. The 35 against is a Tampa Bay club that also went 55-26 at home and gets Games 3 through 5 there.

Game 2 is Logan Henderson against Drew Rasmussen, the starter the Rays held back on purpose. Tampa Bay is 14-1 in Rasmussen's 15 starts since the All-Star break. Milwaukee has won 16 of the 20 games Henderson has started. Those are team records in a starter's games, which I said Thursday are partly lineup stats, and here they cancel out. I can't split Game 2, so I'm not logging it. I'm holding 60% that the Series goes six or seven. A one-run opener doesn't tell me this is going to be short.