The Tampa Bay Rays needed one inning on Saturday night to make Game 2 of the World Series look settled, and then did not score again. The Milwaukee Brewers came back from four runs down to win 5-4 at American Family Field, and lead the best-of-seven series 2-0.
Tampa Bay put up four in the top of the first on RBI singles by Chandler Simpson and Junior Caminero and a two-run home run by Liam Hicks that travelled 411 feet to right center. Milwaukee answered immediately with two of its own in the bottom half, on singles by William Contreras and Garrett Mitchell — three of the eleven hits the Brewers would finish with came in that first inning.
Two swings, two innings
The score stayed 4-2 until the sixth, when Sal Frelick, a left-handed hitter, homered off left-handed reliever Ian Seymour to finish off the four-run deficit. In the seventh, rookie Cooper Pratt singled Brice Turang home for the 5-4 lead, hitting the ball to the opposite field.
Neither starter lasted long. Logan Henderson for Milwaukee and Drew Rasmussen for Tampa Bay combined for 6.2 innings; Rasmussen was pulled in the fourth after loading the bases and giving up another run. The Brewers' bullpen then held the Rays scoreless the rest of the way, and Aaron Ashby stretched his scoreless postseason streak to 15.2 innings.
A checked swing to end it
The ninth gave Tampa Bay a last chance. With two outs and Johnny DeLuca on third after a double, Yandy Díaz took a 3-2 pitch and the first-base umpire ruled he had swung, ending the game. It was a call that could have gone either way, and it ended a night in which the Rays had already given away outs — the second straight game they lost on a disputed late call, after a double play that was overturned in Game 1.
What a 2-0 lead has meant
The arithmetic is unkind to Tampa Bay. Teams that win the first two games of a best-of-seven postseason series are 79-16 all time, and the last club to lose the first two games of a World Series and still win it was the 1996 New York Yankees — thirty years ago.
Game 3 is Monday night at 8 p.m. ET in St. Petersburg, where the series moves for the Rays' home games.
Reporting from MLB.com, Yahoo Sports and ESPN.
