The 122nd World Series begins Friday night at American Family Field in Milwaukee. The National League-best Milwaukee Brewers will host the American League-best Tampa Bay Rays, and one way or the other, baseball will have a first-time champion this season. Neither the Brewers (established 1970) nor Rays (established 1998) have ever won a World Series.

"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," Rays manager Kevin Cash said on Thursday. "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."

Historically, the winner of Game 1 of a best-of-seven has gone on to win the series 65% of the time. It's 64% in the World Series, so basically identical. Just last year, though, the Los Angeles Dodgers lost Game 1 of the World Series at home, then rallied to beat the Toronto Blue Jays in seven games. Winning Game 1 certainly gives you a leg up, but it does not mean the series is over. 

Here now are three key questions heading into Game 1 on Friday night.

1. Can Misiorowski rediscover his whiffs?

Jacob Misiorowski, the likely NL Cy Young winner, has not been himself this postseason. He failed to complete five innings in either of his two starts, not necessarily because of ineffectiveness, but because of high pitch counts. Misiorowski threw 88 pitches en route to allowing two runs in four innings in Game 1 of the NLDS. In Game 1 of the NLCS, it was one run on 94 pitches in 4 ⅓ innings.

Misiorowski's high-octane fastball has played down this postseason. The velocity is plenty good. He averaged -- averaged -- 101.0 mph with his heater in the NLDS and NLCS. Hitters are not swinging and missing nearly as much as they did during the regular season, though, and the resulting foul balls have run up his pitch count.

The Rays had the lowest strikeout rate (18.8% of plate appearances) and lowest whiff rate (20.7% of swings) during the regular season, by a lot too. The Blue Jays were a distant second with a 22.2% whiff rate. Misiorowski has had trouble missing bats with his heater this postseason and he'll now face the best contact-hitting offense in the sport. That could be a problem.

"He hasn't been as crisp," Brewers manager Pat Murphy said about Misiorowski on Thursday. "I don't think people are up there thinking it's going to be 104, and I think they're elated if it's anything less than that. They're obviously looking at an area. They're trying to exploit everything. He's exposed, like all these guys get at some point. He's exposed. They're going to attack a certain way, and we're going to try to counter that attack the way we counter it."

2. Can the Rays handle Milwaukee's lefties?

The Brewers are expected to carry five lefties in their World Series bullpen: Aaron Ashby, Shane Drohan, DL Hall, Kyle Harrison, and JoJo Romero. Ashby, Hall, and Romero are the trusted late-inning guys. Drohan started a bullpen game in the NLCS. Harrison is more of a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option. He'll get the ball deep in extra innings, something like that.

Murphy will be able to roll out lefty after lefty behind Misiorowski and that's bad news for the Rays, who hit righties way better than lefties during the regular season. Here are their numbers:

The Rays have shown little power against lefties this year, which is hard to believe with right-handed thumpers Junior Caminero and Yandy Díaz anchoring the lineup. Ryan Vilade, Tampa's go-to righty platoon bat, will undoubtedly get several key pinch-hit at-bats in the World Series, and perhaps as soon as Game 1. The Rays must solve Milwaukee's lefties to win the title.

3. How will the Brewers handle the layoff?

The Brewers swept the Dodgers in the NLCS and have not played since last Thursday. They've played only eight games in the last 25 days. Rest is good. Believe me, everyone on the Brewers is happy to take it. Still, the fact of the matter is they haven't played much baseball the last three weeks, or any baseball over the last week.

"You can't recreate real, you know what I mean?" Murphy said about his team's downtime. "It's a long layoff, and if we want to use it as an excuse, then let people use it as an excuse, but I refuse to do that. We needed a little bit of a break. It was an emotional series in L.A. Cross-country trip, all that. We had a few days where it was a little lighter, but then we've picked it up and gotten a lot of live ABs, but nothing simulates the game the way it is."

In the three-wild-card era, teams that have five or more days off going into a postseason series are 13-10 in Game 1. Teams have so many tools available to them (Trajekt hitting machines, etc.) that it is easier to navigate that downtime than it was even five years ago. Murphy's right and you can't recreate real, but you can come pretty close. The layoff is definitely a subplot going into Game 1.