The Tampa Bay Rays scored two runs with two outs in the bottom of the 12th inning on Tuesday night to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 in Game 4 of the World Series, denying Milwaukee the sweep and sending the series to a fifth game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Milwaukee still leads the series 3-1 and needs one win for the first championship in the franchise's history.
Three outs from the title
The Brewers appeared to have the game in hand when rookie Cooper Pratt homered off Ian Seymour in the top of the 12th for a 3-2 lead.
The bottom of the inning turned on a defensive mistake. With two outs, a Brewers error on Junior Caminero's grounder kept Tampa Bay alive. Liam Hicks, Jonny DeLuca, Chandler Simpson and pinch-hitter Ben Williamson then hit four consecutive singles off rookie reliever Shane Drohan.
Cedric Mullins, running for Caminero, scored on DeLuca's grounder to tie the game at 3. Williamson's chopper bounced high over first baseman Jake Bauers into short right field, and Nick Fortes came home from second with the winning run.
"It just shows the resiliency of this group," Williamson said after the game.
Earlier, Simpson had driven in the game's first run with a second-inning double off Dustin May. Milwaukee answered with a run in the fourth and a David Hamilton home run, while Tampa Bay's second run came after a throwing error by Hamilton.
The game ended at 12:28 a.m. local time, after 4 hours and 20 minutes. Attendance was 40,514.
The fifth team to get this far
Twenty-six teams have fallen behind 3-0 in a World Series. Tampa Bay is the fifth to win Game 4 — and the previous four all lost Game 5.
That is the weight the Rays carry into Wednesday night, when Milwaukee starts Jacob Misiorowski, the rookie right-hander who opened Game 1 with a 103.5 mph pitch. Rays manager Kevin Cash had not named his starter.
Cash was more definite about Caminero, who finished the game hurt: "He'll play tomorrow on one leg. I'll make sure of it," he said.
Reporting from The Associated Press, as published by MPR News and ABC7, and from ESPN.
