ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Cooper Pratt caught a 2-2 sweeper from Ian Seymour just right and sent it 396 feet to left field, a swing destined for the ages. Maybe as much as half the crowd of 40,514 at Tropicana Field erupted in jubilation as the Milwaukee Brewers hopped over the dugout rail, the go-ahead homer from the rookie shortstop leaving them three outs away from the first World Series championship in franchise history.
As the Tampa Bay Rays returned to their dugout once the half-inning ended, the vibe “was not great, honestly, it’s not great – that homer is definitely a gut punch,” said Canadian catcher Liam Hicks. “But I don't think anyone's ready to go home yet. So just flip the script, try and get ready, try to do what we can to chip away and keep going.”
Lo and behold, the ever-resilient American League champions, reminded all day of the daunting task before them after falling behind 3-0 in the best-of-seven, did just that.
Junior Caminero ran up the line hard after sending a grounder to third, and Joey Ortiz bounced a relay that Jake Bauers couldn’t pick at first. Hicks followed with a left-on-left single that put men on the corners, Caminero running so hard that he limped off the field for a pinch-runner. Jonny DeLuca punched a ball up the middle to tie the game, Chandler Simpson, unable to get a bunt down, lashed a single that loaded the bases and pinch-hitter Ben Williamson chopped a ball into right, triggering pandemonium among the other half of fans at the Trop.
From the very brink of elimination to Game 5 just like that, thanks to a 4-3, 12-inning victory that showed resilience and relentlessness on October’s grandest stage doesn’t belong to the Brewers alone.
“What this team's showed all year is that we're never out of any game,” said Hicks, who also threw out Pratt trying to steal second to end the ninth, replay overturning an initial safe call. “We're not going to let up, we're not going to roll over. We're going to keep chipping away, keep battling.”
The history of teams to fall behind 3-0 in the World Series remains bleak, but of the now 26 times it’s happened, the Rays are just the fifth team to avert a sweep and force a Game 5. In the 51 previous occasions a World Series has stood 3-1, the leading team has won 44 times, so heavy lifting remains for Tampa Bay to become the first club to rally with four straight wins. But manager Kevin Cash stressed that the only way to think was to win the day, which is what they did.
“We're in an underdog position already, down 3-0, I feel like we've just been playing so free,” said DeLuca. “Like, there's really nothing to lose, so just go out there balls to the wall and compete and do anything to win the game.”
The contest, featuring 15 total pitchers throwing 367 pitches over four hours, 20 minutes, is sure to take a toll on both teams. The Brewers will head into Game 5 with one advantage as Jacob Misiorowski is set to take the ball while the Rays, after using Game 1 starter Nick Martinez for two innings of relief behind Griffin Jax, didn’t immediately have a plan.
“Going to check who's available,” said Cash. “I'm going to guess most guys are going to say they're capable of an inning or more given it's Game 5 of the World Series, but nothing has been decided yet.”
The Rays’ all-hands-on-deck approach will be mirrored by the Brewers, even with their ace on turn.
As manager Pat Murphy noted, “You can write it up and hope that they perform like the back of their baseball card, but that doesn't always happen. You go with what you believe is the deal. I trust our guys. I trust them. They put themselves in a position to win. And credit to Tampa for what they did. … They put it in play when they needed to. We drained a lot of pitching, as they did, and that's part of playing a tight ballgame. That's part of it.”
An even bigger part of it was the Rays finally playing the stellar defence that helped carry them to this point, and it still took all they had to survive a nail-biting affair after Monday’s 10-1 blowout left them on the brink.
Simpson’s RBI double in the second opened the scoring, but Pratt’s RBI double in the fourth tied it up. Caminero restored the lead in the bottom half of the frame on DeLuca’s fielder’s choice, cleverly eluding David Hamilton’s tag on the baseline and coming around on the third baseman’s subsequent throwing error, but Hamilton opened the fifth with a solo shot that again tied things up.
Jax, four innings and two runs, and Dustin May, three innings and two runs, left a lot of innings in their wake and several relievers delivered big efforts to set the stage for the late drama.
“We just kind of got back to being ourselves, man,” said Rays closer Bryan Baker, who put up zeroes in the eighth and ninth innings. “The first three games were a little bit uncharacteristic for us, in some of the sloppiness you saw out there in a lot of different aspects of the game. We definitely cleaned that up a little bit tonight. There was still some there, but we held it together close enough and were able to claw back at the end and still pull out a win. That was really awesome to see.”
Tampa’s defence put on a show, with Taylor Walls stealing a hit from Brice Turang with two on to end the first, DeLuca making terrific grabs on Bauers in the third and William Contreras in the fourth.
In the top of the ninth, Simpson leaped against the left-field wall to snare a Garrett Mitchell smash before Hicks threw out Pratt, enduring a long nervous wait while replay officials parsed whether Richie Palacios’ glove clipped the runner’s hand.
“Credit to Richie, he made an unbelievable tag. I wish I had got the throw a little higher, made it a little bit easier,” said Hicks, who tried to be optimistic about the challenge but braced for the worst as he watched the replay on the stadium screen. “I didn't think that they had enough to overturn it, but luckily they did.”
That was one of many moments for the Brewers to lament, three outs away from the first championship in franchise history after Pratt’s drive, Ortiz’s throwing error ending Antonio Senzatela’s night, lefty Shane Drohan unable to lock the game down, all putting their coronation on hold.
“I think the guys understand it's going to be hard,” said Murphy. “When you're achieving something like this, it's going to have its adversity. We had some things go our way (Monday). They had some things go their way today. That's the way it is. You just live with it, and if you're a competitor, you wake up tomorrow morning and come ready to play.”
The Rays to earn another game. The Brewers to end the season and celebrate.
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