Ben Williamson singled home the winning run with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 12th inning as the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 at Tropicana Field, avoiding a World Series sweep and sending the series to a fifth game.
Milwaukee had been three outs from the first championship in the franchise’s 57-year history, and had the lead when the final inning began. They now lead the series 3-1, with Game 5 at the same venue on Wednesday night.
A Rookie Homer, Then an Error
Cooper Pratt looked to have settled it. The 22-year-old Brewers shortstop, who finished the night four for five, hit a solo home run off Ian Seymour in the top of the 12th for a 3-2 lead. It was his first home run of the postseason, and he became the first rookie to hit one in extra innings in a World Series.
Three batters later the game was tied. Junior Caminero led off the bottom half and reached when Joey Ortiz’s throw across the diamond went astray, and from there Tampa Bay put five consecutive men on base.
Liam Hicks singled to move Caminero to third. Jonny DeLuca then singled to centre to bring in the tying run, and Chandler Simpson followed with a single of his own to load the bases.
Milwaukee went to a five-man infield for the pinch-hitter. Williamson, who had been one for 15 in the postseason, swung at the first pitch he saw from Shane Drohan and chopped it over first baseman Jake Bauers into right field. A crowd of 40,514 had the result it had stopped expecting an inning earlier.
Eleven Innings of Very Little
The nine innings before that were about as quiet as a World Series game gets. Neither starter lasted long: Griffin Jax gave up four hits and two runs across four innings for Tampa Bay, Dustin May three hits and two runs in three for Milwaukee.
Simpson drove in the first run of the night with a double in the second. Milwaukee levelled in the fourth, Sal Frelick singling with two outs and scoring on Pratt’s double, and the Rays retook the lead in the bottom half on a throwing error. David Hamilton, batting ninth, tied it again in the fifth with a 391-foot solo home run, his second of the postseason.
Then nothing happened for a long time. There was no scoring between the sixth and the ninth, and neither side recorded a hit in the 10th or the 11th. Tampa Bay’s bullpen gave up four hits and one run across the final eight innings.
Aaron Ashby’s contribution for Milwaukee went into the record books even in defeat. His two and a third innings were hitless and scoreless, taking him to 18 consecutive scoreless innings in a single postseason, more than any pitcher has managed before.
What the Rays Said
Williamson was asked afterwards what the win said about the team rather than about his own at-bat, and answered in those terms.
“It just shows the resiliency of this group,” he said, adding simply that “we continue to fight.”
Simpson, who went three for five, framed the remainder of the series the same way. “We are going to keep fighting until the end,” he said.
Kevin Cash had set the tone before the first pitch, having described the game as do or die following the 10-1 defeat the previous day. “There’s a lot of belief in that room that we’ve got to go out and win today,” the Rays manager said.
The History Still Favours Milwaukee
Tampa Bay are the fifth team in 26 attempts to win Game 4 after falling behind 3-0 in a World Series. The previous four all lost Game 5, and no team trailing 3-0 in a World Series has ever forced a sixth game, let alone won the thing.
The Brewers, meanwhile, had an eight-game winning streak ended and lost the chance to become only the second team to sweep a League Championship Series and a World Series in the same October, after the 1976 Cincinnati Reds.
Milwaukee’s batting was the reason it stayed close for so long. Jackson Chourio went two for six, which took him to ten hits through four games of a World Series and equalled a mark Babe Ruth set in 1928. Outside Pratt and Chourio, the rest of the Brewers’ lineup managed four hits from 38 attempts.
Milwaukee still need one win from a possible three, with the next two in Milwaukee if the series gets that far. Game 5 is in St. Petersburg on Wednesday at 8pm Eastern.
