Rays Finally Remembered Who They Are In 12-Inning World Series Battle vs. Brewers

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Rays watched the Brewers dugout spill onto the field and celebrate on their home turf. No, it wasn’t the final out of the World Series. Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt had just taken an Ian Seymour sweeper and parked it in 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 four-plus hour game, and both the Brewers and Rays were at their wits’ end. But only Milwaukee still had breathing room. Tampa Bay did not have that luxury after playing its sloppiest baseball of the year in the first three games of the Fall Classic. The Rays had backed themselves into a 3-0 corner because of it. The Rays knew they had to stun the Brewers and shock the world to make the unlikeliest of comebacks. “That’s not going to bring 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’s not over until you get that 27th out. Keep adding pressure and try to win the game.” The Rays had no choice but to remember who they were: the best team in the American League. They’re the well-rounded Rays with the killer instinct, defensive savvy and excellent pitching depth that 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 fight that got them here. “We had to band together in that last inning,” Rays left fielder Chandler Simpson said. “That fact that we were able to get the leadoff guy on and pass the baton, it showed the camaraderie we had all year.” Caminero led off the bottom of the 12th by reaching base on a tough fielding error by Brewers third baseman Joey Ortiz. If there’s one thing to know about this Rays team when it’s playing at its best, it’s that when they’re awarded with an extra out, they will punish you for it. Instantly, the energy in the building shifted. Well past midnight, Tropicana Field was still packed to the brim with a sell-out crowd of 40,514 that featured a mix of Rays fans and Brewers fans. The former made themselves heard and rallied behind Tampa Bay. The latter went silent. Rays players said they noticed this, and they 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 off left-hander 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 on third, with no outs in the frame. Rays manager Kevin Cash played his final card of the night by sending his final 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 belt-high sinker that caught the outside corner of the plate, and hit it to shallow right field, just beyond the infield dirt. Backup catcher Nick Fortes came home from third, pointed his finger toward the sky, and sprinted for right field, where Tampa Bay’s entire dugout dog-piled over Williamson and celebrated until they couldn’t hear their own thoughts. The Rays walked it off in a 4-3 win. “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 walk-off ball in the World Series. The way the team fought tonight to get me into that situation and to have runners on, and just to have that moment for me was huge for them.” Added Rays closer Bryan Baker: “The versatility we have, the depth we have, it’s some of the best I’ve ever been around. Tonight was just an encapsulation of that, along with the character we have in this room and how gritty we are as a team and never out of a fight.” The Rays played tough for 12 innings in a do-or-die World Series Game 4. They emptied their bench. They refused to let the Pratt home run bring their energy down. And they showed up in the 12th with the concentration it takes to finally scratch 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 that three more times, straight through. “We knew coming into this game that it was probably going to be that way, that it takes everyone,” Rays shortstop Taylor Walls said. “This roster, I feel like we use pretty much every guy every day, even in the regular season. So that’s no surprise here. “It’s going to take that 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 throughout the middle and second half of the game especially. So, hopefully, tomorrow we can come out and give ourselves a lead and cushion and keep adding on.” Rays right-hander Nick Martinez, who pitched the sixth and seventh inning in relief on Tuesday, thinks he won’t have a voice after Tuesday night’s walk-off hysteria. Martinez was one of seven arms the Rays deployed to stifle the Brewers. “I love the way we fought from beginning to end,” Martinez said. “We showed our true nature today and we ended up on top. We know we can build off this. This is the type 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 the history of the sport has come back to win the World Series after being backed into a 3-0 deficit. When Caminero was asked if the Rays could become the first, he said: “100 percent.” Why? “Because,” Caminero said, “We are the best team in the American League.” They might barely be hanging on, but the Rays are still very much alive. They needed one win to get their swagger back, and opening the door for these gritty 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 pandemonium of Game 4’s extra-inning walk-off 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 ultimate high of finally capturing their first World Series win? “You don’t come down from this high,” Martinez said. “You keep going. You keep riding it. You keep fighting every pitch.”