Sal Frelick hitting the first Brewers World Series home run since Ben Oglivie 16,075 days previous . . . (Fox Sports capture.)
Not even the mild controversy of Game Two’s final strike could erase what’s becoming a theme for these postseason Brewers. They won’t let any deficit keep them from the steady but certain completion of their self-appointed rounds.
Jump them with a little help from one of their own mistakes for four runs in the first, the way the Rays did Saturday night? The Brewers just look, listen, and think, They have us right where we want them.
Pry two right back out of the Rays’s ace Drew Rasmussen in the bottom of the inning, but leave first and third and let Rasmussen settle in for one of his usual outings? They have us right where we want them.
Sneak a third run in the fourth on a ball sneaking through Rays first baseman Jonathan Aranda’s legs with first and third and one out? They have us right where we want them.
Stay a run behind opening the bottom of the sixth, watch right fielder Sal Frelick wring his way to a full-count ninth pitch off Rays reliever Ian Seymour? They have us right where we want them. Watch Frelick homer on that pitch? They had us right where we wanted them.
Because that’s just the Brewers, too.
And that was about a week after they fell behind 4-0 to the Damndodgers in National League Championship Series Game Four. A deficit that included a still-ailing Shohei Ohtani finding enough of a power reserve to hit a three-run homer measured not in distance but on the Richter scale.
They had us right where we wanted them, too. And—a two-run single in the fourth, an RBI single and a bases-loaded game-tying walk in the fifth, a leadoff homer in the sixth, and a two-out homer in the ninth later, the Brewers finished the pennant sweep they started.
Now, with a 5-4 Game Two win in the World Series, the Brewers look unsinkable and the Rays look half sunk. Beware how deceptive looks can be. Remind yourself there’s still time for the Rays to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, say to themselves, They have us right where we want them, too.
They can make the Brewers suffer in the Trop, a pressure cooker of a dome equal to American Family Field’s roof closure for a racket down from the stands. They can force the Series back to Milwaukee with those comeback kids needing yet another comeback. Or two.
Can’t they?
Who knows? It’s not looking great for the Rays after Rasmussen—who hadn’t allowed three or more runs in his previous thirty-six innings of work—got pried for three runs in three and two-thirds innings Saturday night.
It’s not looking great for the Rays after their bullpen, the fifth-best in the American League on the regular season, couldn’t even think about getting Games One and Two to their lights-out ninth-inning man Bryan Baker.
It’s not looking great for the Rays after Frelick fought Seymour through eight pitches most of which Frelick admitted later enabled less-than-comfortable swings, then got what he wanted on the ninth pitch, a sinker right down Main Street—and hit it on a high line over the center field fence. For the first World Series home run any Brewer has hit in 16,075 days. (The last: Ben Oglivie, fifth inning, 1982 Game Seven, off the Cardinals’s Joaquín Andújar.)
It’s not looking great for the Rays after rookie Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt—who enabled their early lead in the first place by throwing Yandy Díaz’s game-opening grounder away—atoned for that with second baseman Brice Turang on third (leadoff double; advance on a fly out) when he lined a single into shallow right field, letting Turang score the fifth Brewers run without a sweat.
It’s not looking good for the Rays when they’re up against a Brewers bullpen that has a 1.24 ERA this entire postseason while their own pen minus Baker has a 4.20.
And, when they’re up against an Aaron Ashby who isn’t the Brewers’s designated closer but has a zero ERA and a 1.24 fielding-independent pitching rate over three and a third Series innings so far. Not to mention 15.2 scoreless innings to start his entire postseason, a third of an inning shy of the record sixteen Cleveland’s Andrew Miller set in 2016. Over that 15.2? Five hits, three walks, seventeen punchouts.
There was Ashby on the mound with Díaz at the plate and the Rays down to their final out Saturday night. There was Ashby in the hold 3-1 to the dangerous enough Díaz. There was Brewers catcher William Contreras calling for and getting a curve ball that froze Díaz like a turkey awaiting its Thanksgiving dinner thaw. There was Contreras calling for a second straight curve, Ashby throwing it down and in, Díaz unable to keep from swinging.
The Rays’s designated hitter tried to check the swing. An appeal to first base rung him up with the game-ending out. The swing looked so bloody close on replays—the general rule is that if the bat head passes the front of the plate, it’s a swing and a strike, though Díaz’s bat head was so close the call could have gone either way.
If it had been ruled check swing, ball four, it would have meant Aranda batting with first and third and two out. Aranda had one double that came to naught on the night, but he’d gone 3-for-3 with a run scored in Game One. He wouldn’t exactly have been easy meat, even for Ashby.
But rest assured. If it did happen that way, Ashby and the Brewers would have given themselves a quick review, looked at Aranda checking in, and thought to themselves, yet again: They have us right where we want them.
Beware. The Rays had 98 comeback wins on the regular season to the Brewers having a mere 34. But the Brewers have done it seven times this postseason—including four straight to the Damndodgers—to the Rays doing it nada.
Other than the change of venue, and even with rejuvenated Freddy Peralta scheduled to start Game Three, the Rays can’t yet look at the Brewers and think, They have us right where we want them.
