Rays Bounce Into Game 5 After 12-Inning Thriller
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It didn’t always feel like a Rays home game. Multitudes of Brewers fans, unable to procure or afford tickets to Wisconsin’s first World Series games in 44 years, had flown to Florida to see their team clinch. But home field advantage played a part in the Rays’ improbable, dramatic 12-inning 4-3 win in Game 4 to extend the World Series at least one more night.
The Tropicana Field turf is one of the fastest playing surfaces in the league, and the Rays are able to derive an advantage from it that no other team can extract from its own home field. So while the Brewers took the lead in the top of the 12th by hitting the ball in the usual direction — up, in the form of Cooper Pratt’s solo home run — the Rays struck back with four grounders and a liner in the bottom of the inning.
The decisive hit, by Ben Williamson, went straight into the turf, bounced over Milwaukee’s drawn-in five-man infield, and landed… who cares where. The Rays are still alive.
Michael is a writer at FanGraphs. Previously, he was a staff writer at The Ringer and D1Baseball, and his work has appeared at Grantland, Baseball Prospectus, The Atlantic, ESPN.com, and various ill-remembered Phillies blogs. Follow him on Twitter, if you must, @MichaelBaumann.
Gutsy win by the Rays, I’ll admit I thought it was over after Pratt’s homer. I have no idea what the Rays do for Game 5 pitching now, though. Rasmussen on short rest and then just cobble something together after that?
Only consolation is the Brewers’ best bullpen arms all got worked hard tonight (except Megill) so if Miz gets knocked out early it could be chaos for both teams. Should be fun!
The Rasmussen/Martinez switcheroo is now the central decision of the whole series.
I’m guessing the Brewers bring Megill on right after Miz and hope the two of them can get through 7 with a comfortable lead before rolling the dice on anyone else.
Rays have to go Rasmussen? And then quick hook for…Matz to take a turn through the order? Kelly should be OK if things are close.
I can’t see anyone else decent even being available. The pen pitched 8 innings.
I can’t see getting eliminated with Matz and Seymour.
The only other remote option is Peralta.
I think it was the 10th inning but the camera cut to the Rays dugout and Peralta was going to town on his arm with the theragun. He’s available today
Then I’d start him, and use everyone except Rasmussen and maybe even him.
At least give the home fans a win.
That was some incredibly bad babip luck for the Brewers, everything found a glove, hope the worm turns tomorrow.
I think you might have this backwards. The Brewers had insanely good BABIP luck the first 3 games, the worm turned in game 4.
12 of the 13 hardest hit balls were by the Brewer’s. 9 of the12 resulted in outs.
For game 3, absolutely the case. But game 1 brewers were -.011 ba vs. xba (vs. +.028 for rays), and game 2 brewers were +.019 vs. -.016 for rays…so basically they both got about what you’d expect
Really feels like they’re just staving off the inevitable, but I’ll never complain about getting more baseball
“Rays, Rays, against the dying of the light!!”
Oof tough but accurate
Joey could have run halfway to first and still gotten Junior.
Convinced if they get the first out inning plays out differently.
Sigh
I don’t know why, but I’m actually getting this feeling the Rays could, at the very least, make this a series. They’ll be huge underdogs tonight, but that means if they win, the Brewers will be SWEATING on that flight back to Milwaukee.
Nevertheless, Murphy made the right call trying to close it out with the dregs of his bullpen instead of Misiorowski. When you’re up 3-0, you really just need to avoid a catastrophic scenario, and burning Miz and losing would be pretty catastrophic.
If there was any team that could make history by winning 4 in a row after losing 3 in the world series, it’s the Rays… Unfortunately, the other team that could do that is the Brewers which they’re currently up against.
Yes, the Rays make their own luck. It’s just that the Brewers also make their own luck.
Miz is out of gas and (arguably) has been their third-best starter in the playoffs — their Game 6 and 7 starters have pitched well. Even with a loss tonight, I don’t think they’ll be sweating going back to Milwaukee needing to take one of two at home — they’re a composed team that has handled adversity just fine.
I thought he he should have used Megill for more than one batter, and I would have kept Sentzela in after the error.
If that’s the dregs of the bullpen, then what do you call Kyle Harrison?
So a few plays of interest. Caminero not being called out when he was well into the grass avoiding the tag from Hamilton. Aranda basically tripping Chourio. Which was due to the second baseman channeling Sax or Todd Walker with his throws. And of course Yelich being rung up on a checked swing that wasn’t close to the Diaz swing that had so many online in a tizzy
Not looking to start anything. Just looking for others thoughts.
Caminero was barely on the grass, definitely not anywhere near the 3 feet that is necessary to rule a runner out
Tag/baseline rule has nothing to do w where the runner is relative to the dirt and grass (or turf in this case) iirc. If I understand the gist of the rule the baseline only exists when a fielder makes an attempt to tag a runner, then the baseline is created in a line straight from where the runner is at the point a tag effort is made to the base and the runner is allowed 3 feet on either side of the line to avoid the tag attempt.
FWIW I have seen runners called out exactly to what transpired in the game. Hence the question
Baffled why being curious on what others think gets downvoted.
A good clue that you’re not at all correctly understanding the basepath rule is that neither Hamilton nor his team protested whatsoever nor asked to review it.
This line from Jax is a pretty good one that made me laugh to myself