ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Rays saw the Brewers pitchers spill onto the field and celebrate on their home turf. No, it wasn’t the World Series final.
Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt had just taken an Ian Seymour sweeper and parked it into the left field seats to give Milwaukee a 3-2 lead with three outs to go. It was the top of the 12th inning of a more than four-hour game, and both the Brewers and Rays were at their wits end.
But only Milwaukee still had room to breathe. Tampa Bay didn’t have that luxury after playing its worst baseball of the year in the first three games of the Fall Classic. The Rays were up on a 3-0 corner kick because of it.
The Rays knew they had to stun the Brewers and shock the world to pull off the most improbable comeback.
“It’s not going to get us down,” Rays third baseman Junior Caminero said of what he was thinking as he watched the Brewers congratulate Pratt after he crossed home plate. “Just keep going. The game isn’t over until you get to 27. Keep adding pressure and try to win the game.”
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The Rays had no choice but to remember who they were: the best team in the American League. They are the Rays with killer instincts, defensive savvy and great pitching depth who spent the regular season and most of this October dominating their opponents. In the end, it was better late than never.
Finally, the Rays showed the struggle that got them here.
“We had to come together in that last inning,” Rays left fielder Chandler Simpson said. “The fact that we were able to catch the lead guy and pass the baton showed the camaraderie we’ve had all year.”
Caminero led off the bottom of the 12th by reaching base on a hard fielding error by Brewers third baseman Joey Ortiz. If there’s one thing to know about this Rays team when it’s at its best, it’s that when they get rewarded with an out, they’re going to punish you for it.
Instantly, the power in the building shifted. After midnight, Tropicana Field was still packed with a sellout crowd of 40,514 featuring a mix of Rays fans and Brewers fans. The former were heard and rallied behind Tampa Bay. The latter was silent. Rays players said they noticed that and used it to keep their energy up.
After Caminero lit the fuse, the rest of the Rays lineup came to life. Catcher Liam Hicks sliced a single to left field by lefty Shane Drohan and moved the tying run to third. Center fielder Jonny DeLuca tied the game at 3-3 with an RBI single to center. Simpson loaded the bases on another single to center. The Rays had the winning run in the third with no outs in the frame.
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Rays manager Kevin Cash played his final card of the night by sending his last bench player, infielder Ben WIlliamson, to the plate to pinch hit for Victor Mesa Jr. That was it. Tampa Bay had been battling Milwaukee for four hours and 20 minutes and there was no other player left on the bench.
Williamson swung at Drohan’s first pitch, a 96.2 mph sinker with a high belt that caught the outside corner of the plate and hit it into shallow right field, just beyond the outfield dirt. Backup shortstop Nick Fortes homered from third, pointed to the sky and ran to right field, where the entire Tampa Bay dog piled on Williamson and celebrated until they couldn’t hear their own thoughts.
The Rays put it away in a 4-3 victory.
“It’s what you dream of growing up,” Williamson said. “You play wiffle ball in the backyard with your friends and you’re dreaming of hitting a walkoff ball in the World Series. The way the team battled tonight to put me in that situation and have runners on, and just to have that moment for me was huge for them.”
Added Rays closer Bryan Baker: “The skill set that we have, the depth that we have, it’s one of the best I’ve ever been around. Tonight was just an epitome of that, along with the character that we have in this room and how tough we are as a team and never out of a fight.”
The Rays pitched hard for 12 innings in a do-or-die Game 4 of the World Series. They emptied their bench. They refused to let Pratt’s home run dampen their energy. And they showed up in the 12th with the focus needed to finally scratch out a win against a historically elite Milwaukee team. The Rays finally proved that, all along, they have what it takes to beat the Brewers.
Now they just have to do it three more times, at once.
“We knew going into this game that it was probably going to be like that, that it was going to take everybody,” Rays shortstop Taylor Walls said. “This roster, I feel like we use almost every guy every day, even in the regular season. So there’s no surprise here.
“It’s going to be necessary to beat this team. It was good to see a well-executed game all around. I still think we’d like to see more opportunities to score more runs here during the middle and second half of the game, especially. So, hopefully, tomorrow we can come out and give ourselves a lead and a cushion and keep adding.”
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Rays right-hander Nick Martinez, who pitched the sixth and seventh innings in relief on Tuesday, thinks there will be no buzz after Tuesday night’s walkout hysteria. Martinez was one of seven weapons the Rays used to throttle the Brewers.
“I like the way we fought from start to finish,” Martinez said. “We showed our true nature today and finished on top. We know we can build on this. That’s the kind of energy we’ve been playing with all year. Everyone on the roster has contributed to us being here. That’s what it’s going to take to beat these guys.”
Only the 2004 Boston Red Sox have won a postseason series after being down 3-0. And that was in the ALCS against the Yankees. No team in sports history has ever come back to win the World Series after coming back from a 3-0 deficit.
When Caminero was asked if the Rays could take first, he said, “100 percent.”
Why?
“Because,” Caminero said, “We’re the best team in the American League.”
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They may be barely hanging on, but the Rays are still very much alive. They needed a win to get their bragging rights back, and opening the door to these tough Rays was the last thing the Brewers wanted to do. Tampa Bay will try to keep their season going behind their ace, right-hander Drew Rasmussen, on Wednesday in another do-or-die Game 5. After the debacle of the Game 4 win, it’s a wonder how anyone in the Rays organization will be able to get some sleep to come back and do it all again.
So how do the Rays come down from that recent high to finally capture their first World Series victory?
“It doesn’t come down from this height,” Martinez said. “You keep going. You keep riding it. You keep fighting on every pitch.”
