Down 4-0 in the first inning, Milwaukee stormed back to win 5-4 on Saturday night — and the game still came down to a check-swing call with the tying run on third.
By Cliff Maddox — The Beat Writer, CelebnMusic247
The Milwaukee Brewers are two wins from the first championship in franchise history. Milwaukee fell behind the Tampa Bay Rays 4-0 in the first inning of World Series Game 2 at American Family Field, then scored in four separate innings, leaned on six scoreless innings from its bullpen and survived a controversial final strike for a 5-4 win and a 2-0 series lead, per Reuters.
A nightmare first inning, answered immediately
Tampa Bay put up four runs — three earned — against starter Logan Henderson in the first, helped by a costly error from rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt, per Reuters. Henderson lasted three innings, but Milwaukee answered at once: singles from William Contreras and Garrett Mitchell drove in two runs in the bottom of the first to cut it to 4-2, and the Brewers pulled within 4-3 in the fourth on a Rays error.
From there, the bullpen took over. JoJo Romero, Dustin May and DL Hall each worked a scoreless inning, and Abner Uribe recorded four outs for the win, per Reuters.
Frelick ties it, Pratt redeems himself
Sal Frelick tied it 4-4 with a leadoff home run in the sixth off Ian Seymour — a 408-foot shot to center, the first postseason homer of his career, per Reuters. Milwaukee also kept it tied in the field that inning, as Jackson Chourio threw out Liam Hicks at home, with Contreras applying the tag.
The winning run belonged to the player who had started the night with the error. Brice Turang doubled to open the seventh off Tyler Wells and moved up on a flyout, and Pratt greeted reliever Kevin Kelly with an RBI single to right that put Milwaukee ahead 5-4, per Reuters — the rookie whose mistake helped dig the hole delivered the hit that climbed out of it.
A World Series ending decided by a check-swing
For the second straight night, Tampa Bay stranded the tying run at third base in the ninth. Jonny DeLuca doubled to open the inning off Aaron Ashby, Victor Mesa Jr. struck out, and a groundout moved DeLuca to third, bringing up Yandy Diaz with two outs and a full count, per Reuters. Diaz checked his swing on Ashby’s final pitch. Home plate umpire Jim Wolf initially appeared to rule no swing, but Contreras appealed, and first-base umpire James Hoye ruled Diaz had gone around — strike three, game over, per USA Today.
Diaz disagreed, while accepting the ruling stood: “In the moment, yeah, I disagreed. But the umpire said it was a swing and it is what it is,” he said, per USA Today. Check-swings cannot be reviewed, which is why the call fueled debate as the series left Milwaukee, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Ashby, who closed it for his third save of the postseason, has still not allowed a run in 15 2/3 innings across eight October appearances, per Reuters.
Game 3 is Monday night in St. Petersburg. Only 10 teams have overcome a 2-0 deficit to win the World Series, the last being the 1996 New York Yankees, per Reuters.
The 247 Take — Two nights, two one-run wins, two endings that needed an umpire’s ruling to become final. Milwaukee’s bullpen is the story of this series so far — six scoreless innings on a night the starter gave up four in the first — and Pratt turning his own error into the game-winning hit is the kind of October arc you cannot script. Tampa Bay has been one swing away twice. One swing away, twice, is still 0-2.
More sports news at CelebnMusic247.com.
Sources: Reuters | USA Today | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | My Sports Hub
