The Tampa Bay Rays spent eight innings building a bridge to a game they could not afford to lose, then crossed it in the least glamorous way imaginable: an error, four singles and a walk-off run. Their 4-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in 12 innings Tuesday at Tropicana Field kept the World Series alive, though Milwaukee still leads 3-1.
Tampa Bay’s first win of this series required twelve innings and still depended on a Milwaukee mistake. The Rays’ offense produced nine hits, but its biggest inning began with Joey Ortiz throwing the ball away. Milwaukee’s bullpen then faced four consecutive singles, and the Rays accepted every gift on the table. In October, good manners are overrated.
Griffin Jax gave Tampa Bay four innings and allowed two runs, including David Hamilton’s home run to right-center field in the fifth inning. After that, six relievers covered the final eight innings while allowing one run. Kevin Kelly, Nick Martinez, Bryan Baker, Tyler Wells, Cam Booser and Ian Seymour combined to keep Milwaukee from adding to a 2-2 tie through the ninth.
The relief assignments varied considerably. Kelly supplied a scoreless fifth. Martinez handled two innings. Baker followed with two more. Wells recorded five outs without allowing a run, and Booser worked around a walk in the 11th. Seymour then inherited a tie game in the 12th and immediately faced Cooper Pratt, who had already collected three hits.
Pratt’s home run gave Milwaukee a 3-2 lead and made the Rays’ margin for error microscopic. Seymour recovered to strike out Garrett Mitchell, watched Ortiz ground out and then surrendered a double to Jackson Chourio. But Chourio remained stranded when Jake Bauers popped out, leaving Tampa Bay three outs from elimination.
The bottom of the inning turned on Ortiz, whose throwing error allowed Junior Caminero to reach with nobody out. That was a genuine Milwaukee mistake, and it changed the inning’s geometry. Liam Hicks followed with a single that moved Caminero to third before Tampa Bay replaced him with pinch-runner Cedric Mullins. Jonny DeLuca’s single scored Mullins and moved Hicks to second, tying the game.
Nick Fortes pinch-ran for Hicks, Chandler Simpson singled to load the bases, and Ben Williamson entered for Victor Mesa Jr. Williamson’s single to right scored Fortes and ended the game. The four singles moved runners forward a base or two at a time, with two pinch-runners eventually scoring. Tampa Bay kept finding contact after the initial error gave it an opening.
That was enough to win this inning; it scarcely settled the larger problem Milwaukee’s pitching has posed.
Milwaukee had its own evidence that this game could have gone differently. Pratt went 4-for-5 with a home run and a double, while Chourio added two hits, including the 12th-inning double. The Brewers also received two home runs overall, from Pratt and Hamilton, and their pitching held the Rays scoreless from the seventh through the 11th.
