Brewers' Historic Eight-Run Fifth and Woodruff's Return Put Them One Win From a Title

The Milwaukee Brewers are one win from their first World Series championship, and they got there with an inning nobody had ever produced and a pitcher nobody expected to see. Milwaukee beat the Tampa Bay Rays 10-1 in Game 3 on Monday night at Tropicana Field, taking a 3-0 series lead that no team in history has ever surrendered. The Brewers scored eight runs in the fifth inning with two outs, a World Series first, and closed the night with Brandon Woodruff on the mound for the first time since July.

How did the fifth inning unfold?

It started with the inning apparently over. David Hamilton lined out and Jackson Chourio singled, then Jake Bauers flew out, leaving the Brewers with two outs and a runner on first, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Christian Yelich walked, and when William Contreras hit a chopper to third, Yelich beat the force-play throw at second, a call replay overturned from out to safe. That loaded the bases and chased Rays starter Freddy Peralta, the Journal Sentinel’s “old friend” facing his former club.

What followed was seven straight hits. Brice Turang singled up the middle for two runs, Garrett Mitchell singled in another, Cooper Pratt doubled in two more, Sal Frelick doubled in one, Hamilton singled in one and Chourio doubled in the eighth run of the inning. Twelve Brewers batted, eight scored, and a 2-0 game became a 10-0 rout. “The guys just passed the baton to each other,” Yelich told FOX’s Ken Rosenthal after the game, theScore reports. “It was just good at-bat after good at-bat after good at-bat.”

Why does the fifth inning stand alone in World Series history?

Because no team had ever done it with two outs. Milwaukee became the first team in Fall Classic history to score eight runs in an inning after two outs, theScore reports, setting a playoff single-game record built on seven consecutive batters getting a hit. Only twice before had a team managed seven runs in that situation, the Giants in Game 2 of the 2010 World Series and the Red Sox in Game 1 of the 2007 World Series.

The inning also carried a smaller irony worth noting. The replay review that kept it alive overturned an out at second base, the kind of call that has already shaped this series: Milwaukee’s Game 2 win turned on a check-swing final out that survived its own appeal, and its Game 1 win turned on an overturned double play. Three games, three decisive reviews, all breaking Milwaukee’s way.

What did Robert Gasser do to Tampa Bay’s bats?

He made them disappear. Gasser threw six shutout innings, allowing one hit and one walk with three strikeouts, theScore reports, and faced the minimum through six innings. He was the first left-hander to do that in a World Series game since Sandy Koufax in 1965, and the last pitcher of any kind to do it since Curt Schilling in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, the Journal Sentinel reports.

The Rays’ only baserunner for most of the night was Yandy Diaz’s leadoff single in the first inning, erased when he was caught stealing. Victor Mesa Jr. walked to open the sixth, then was erased on a double play, so Gasser still faced the minimum. Antonio Senzatela added a clean seventh, and Milwaukee became the first team to face the minimum through seven innings of a World Series game since Don Larsen’s perfect game for the Yankees in 1956. By the eighth, the Brewers were the fourth team ever to face the minimum through eight innings.

What made Jackson Chourio’s night special?

Four hits, a stolen base and a place in the record book. Chourio went 4-for-5 with an RBI and a steal, theScore reports, and is the youngest player with four hits in a World Series game since Joe Garagiola in 1946, per ESPN’s Jorge Castillo. He is also the first player with four hits and a stolen base in a World Series game since Roberto Alomar in 1993.

The night extended a series-long tear. Chourio now has eight hits, four runs and three steals in 14 plate appearances against Tampa Bay, the second most hits in the first three games of a single World Series, according to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs. “He was tremendous. Locked in,” manager Pat Murphy told reporters, theScore reports. “You lead off the game with that knock, even though we didn’t score a run, it just gives us a big lift.”

Why did Brandon Woodruff’s ninth inning matter more than the score?

Because of everything that came before it. Woodruff had not pitched since going 3 2/3 innings against Arizona on July 4, USA Today reports, after right shoulder inflammation flared for a second time following two months on the injured list in May and June. He was supposed to undergo season-ending surgery in August, then gradually felt better and rebuilt his arm strength instead. He threw a live batting practice session days before the World Series and was added to the roster hours before Game 1.

“I didn’t want this to be a charity pick,” Woodruff said before Game 1, USA Today reports. “I wanted to be on the roster so I could help win.” On Monday he finally got that chance, and the crowd noticed: Brewers fans at Tropicana Field gave him a warm ovation as he took the mound, the Journal Sentinel reports. He allowed a fluky Cedric Mullins single and a Yandy Diaz double for Tampa Bay’s only run, then closed out a 10-1 win. The original plan, Woodruff revealed after the game, was for him to start Game 4 as an opener. The rout changed the plan, and Murphy asked if he wanted the ninth. “As soon as he asked, I said, ‘Hell yeah, I want the ninth,’” Woodruff said.

What happens next?

Game 4 is Tuesday night at Tropicana Field, and Milwaukee needs one more win. The Brewers are 10-1 this postseason, theScore reports, and a win would make them the first team to sweep a League Championship Series and a World Series since the LCS became a best-of-seven series in 1985. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, faces the weight of history: no team down 3-0 has ever forced a Game 6, let alone won a World Series.

The series has already produced its share of off-field curiosities, from the plunging Tampa ticket prices as the Rays fell behind to reliever Trevor Megill’s blast at the Trop’s white roof during Sunday’s workout. Game 3 added the biggest one yet, and it came with a fitting coda: the roof Megill cursed did not matter, the ticket prices did not matter, and the only thing that mattered was a fifth inning that will live in Brewers history and a ninth inning that belonged to a pitcher who nearly lost his season.