Rays Deny Brewers a Coronation With a 12th-Inning Game 4 Comeback

The champagne was ready, the plastic lining was being unrolled, and the Milwaukee Brewers were three outs from their first World Series championship. Then the Tampa Bay Rays did what no team trailing 3-0 in a World Series is supposed to do: they won anyway. Ben Williamson, a pinch hitter who had gone 1 for 15 in the postseason, bounced a single into right field in the bottom of the 12th inning on Tuesday night, and the Rays beat the Brewers 4-3 at Tropicana Field to force Game 5 on Wednesday. Milwaukee still leads the series 3-1, but the sweep is gone, the coronation is postponed, and a series that looked finished on Monday night is alive again.

How did the 12th inning unfold?

With a rookie’s swing, and then with an error. Cooper Pratt, the 22-year-old Brewers shortstop, led off the top of the 12th with a home run off Ian Seymour, his fourth hit of the game, to put Milwaukee ahead 3-2. It looked like the hit that would end the series. Instead it set up the collapse. In the bottom half, Junior Caminero reached on a throwing error by Brewers third baseman Joey Ortiz, a routine grounder thrown past first baseman Jake Bauers. Antonio Senzatela left, Shane Drohan entered, and Drohan faced four batters without retiring any of them. Liam Hicks singled, Jonny DeLuca singled up the middle to score pinch runner Cedric Mullins and tie the game 3-3, Chandler Simpson singled to load the bases, and Williamson ended it with a single that scored pinch runner Nick Fortes. The Brewers’ bullpen had pitched eight consecutive scoreless innings before the 12th, USA Today reports, and then it melted down in a single frame.

What made Cooper Pratt’s homer historic?

It was the fourth hit of a game no rookie had ever had in this spot. Pratt became the first rookie in MLB history to record four hits in a potential World Series clincher, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, and he did it after hitting just three home runs in the regular season. He had already driven in a run with a double in the fourth inning, and his 12th-inning homer off a 2-2 sweeper from Seymour briefly gave Milwaukee the lead it needed. Pratt’s night will now be remembered differently: as the prelude to a comeback, rather than as the hit that won a championship. That is the cruelty of a 12-inning game. One swing can look like history for about fifteen minutes, and then the other team writes over it.

What went wrong for Milwaukee in the bottom of the 12th?

One throw, and then no outs. Ortiz is known for his defense, USA Today notes, which is what made the error on Caminero’s routine grounder so damaging: it opened the inning without costing Milwaukee an out, and it chased Senzatela from the game. Drohan, appearing for the first time since October 15, then allowed four straight singles. DeLuca’s tying hit came past a drawn-in infield, Simpson’s hit came after he tried to bunt, and Williamson’s winner came with the infield in and five fielders on the dirt. The Brewers had spent the series taking advantage of Tampa Bay’s mistakes, as Game 4 starter Griffin Jax acknowledged after the game, and in the 12th the roles reversed completely. Milwaukee’s own error started the rally, and its bullpen could not stop it.

How rare is what Tampa Bay just did?

Rare on two counts. The Rays became only the fifth team in World Series history to trail 3-0 and still force a Game 5, USA Today reports, and the win was just the fourth in World Series history in which a team staved off elimination with an extra-inning victory. The warning attached to the first number is blunt: the Associated Press notes that the previous four teams in Tampa Bay’s position all lost Game 5. The Rays also have their own recent history to argue against: they lost the first three games of this series by giving Milwaukee extra chances, and Jax said so himself after Game 4, telling reporters the Rays had not played their cleanest baseball in the first three games. Game 4 was the night they finally stopped giving those chances away, at least for one inning, and it was enough.

What did Jackson Chourio do in Game 4?

He joined Babe Ruth. Chourio recorded two hits in Game 4, giving him 10 hits in the first four games of the World Series, and Reuters reports that the only other player to reach 10 hits through four World Series games was Ruth in 1928. Chourio has been the Brewers’ most consistent bat in this series, and his Game 4 performance continued a postseason in which he has already delivered one of its signature moments, the final-strike walk-off against Mason Miller that stunned San Diego in the NLDS. The record chase is a subplot now, but it is a telling one: Milwaukee’s best young player is producing at a historic rate, and the Brewers still lost the game. That is how thin the margin was on Tuesday night, and how much of the series has turned on single plays rather than sustained dominance.

What did the players say after the game?

The Rays talked about rewriting a script, and the Brewers talked about a missed chance. “These are the two best teams left in baseball,” Jax said, USA Today reports. “Unfortunately, we haven’t been playing the cleanest baseball for the last three games. No secret there. You can tell by the three losses we have that we’ve been giving them a lot of extra chances, and you can’t do that against the Brewers. They’ve taken advantage of everything. There’s no rewriting the script. No changes in who we are.” Then he added the line that defined the night: “But this time, they re-wrote the script.” Caminero, whose grounder started the winning rally, gave Milwaukee its due and then took it back: “I don’t even think it’s been a matter of necessarily playing bad. I think a lot of credit goes to Milwaukee. They’ve just been playing exceptionally well. Earlier, I told [Brewers catcher William] Contreras, you know, you have my blessing. You know, I wish you the best in this series. But now, it’s kind of like, well you’ve played a little too well.” Drew Rasmussen, who starts Game 5 for Tampa Bay, was blunter about the gap: “In all honesty, they’ve outperformed us in all three facets of the game. I think they’ve pitched better than us. I think they’ve done better offensively. And I think they’ve played better defense than we have.”

What happens next in the series?

Game 5 is Wednesday night at Tropicana Field, with Rasmussen on the mound for Tampa Bay. The Brewers need one win in the next three games to claim the first championship in franchise history, and the sweep that would have made them the first team to sweep a best-of-seven League Championship Series and a best-of-seven World Series since 1985 is no longer available. That mark was in reach after Monday’s 10-1 Game 3 rout, and it disappeared in the bottom of the 12th on Tuesday. The series began with Milwaukee winning a Game 2 finish decided by a check swing, and it has stayed close enough that a single error can still flip it. Tampa Bay has now forced the series back to Wednesday, in front of a crowd that spent Tuesday night watching its team refuse to lose, and in a ballpark whose white roof drew a profane review from Milwaukee’s closer before the series even arrived there. The Brewers are still in control. They are just no longer one win from a parade.