Tag Archives: Liam Hicks

WS: At long last, Bushville wins again

Posted on by
Reply
Milwaukee Brewers

Series MVP William Contreras (with mask), Les Mis, and the Brewers give Milwaukee its first World Series title since Sputnik I. (Fox Sports capture.)

Long enough ago, in a world far enough away, Milwaukee hosted its first World Series champion. It happened in the same month as Sputnik I greeted the world and Albert Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The city the Yankees dismissed as Bushville embraced the insult as a badge of glory.

Those Braves turned the Yankees aside in seven games, led by a Yankee discard named Lew Burdette, who went forth to make the world’s worst country music record until the advent of the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. And, by three Hall of Famers (Henry Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn) equal to those Yankees’s three. (Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle.)

Bushville won. It only took another 69 years for the city putting on the Schlitz to host another World Series champion. The Brewers of Bushville kept the Rays of Tampa at bay yet again Wednesday night. Their 4-1 Game Five triumph had everything except the kitchen sink thrown into it.

The Series in which only four balls were hit over fences didn’t need the long ball for both sides to engage, electrify, and entertain. Until the Rays plain ran out of petrol after their Game Four semi-surprise win, both teams had enough small, medium, and rub-a-dub-dub mojo working to leave fans wanting as much more as they could offer.

This wasn’t just a World Series conquest.

The Brewers swept their nemeses from L.A. out of this year’s National League Championship Series. The same Damndodgers who dispatched them from three of their seven previous postseasons. The Brewers also became only the fifth team to win 100+ regular season games and get rid of the previous season’s World Series winners.

They won eight straight postseason games from the final game of their division series win to Game Three Tuesday night. Tying the postseason streak records of the 2019 Nationals, the 2014 Royals, the 2005 White Sox, and the 2004 Red Sox. It might have been nine straight for these Brewers if only manager Pat Murphy removed his caution vest for the bottom of the Game Four twelfth.

After his sharp rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt hit the tiebreaking home run in the top of the Game Four twelfth, Murphy could and arguably should have sent his scheduled Game Five starter Jacob Misiorowski out for the bottom of the Game Four twelfth. The World Series is three outs from being in your vault, Skip!

To everyone snarking that Misiorowski’s Game Five triumph proved Murphy right in holding him back—and sending unknown soldier Shane Drohan out to surrender the tying and losing runs on four straight singles—consider that it also proved Les Mis might well have nailed the Series-winning outs without anything interrupting him.

Inexperience! some might have snarked at suggesting Misiorowski should have been saved. Aside from him already having established himself in this postseason, starting pitchers have been sent out for attempted shutdown relief with past World Series wins on the line or close enough to it. At all levels of experience.

And, rookies or sophomores haven’t been unheard of pitching in Series games where survival is on the menu or winning is just within reach. Come to think of it, another Brewers rook, Robert Gasser, got lost in the aftermath after that unprecedented two-out, eight-hit, eight-run Game Three fifth memory-lapsed his magnificent starting six shutout innings.

So it was Drohan, after Rays third baseman Joey Ortiz’s very unfortunate throwing error allowed Junior Caminero aboard (though he’d come out for a runner after dinging his leg) prodded Murphy to life Antonio Senzatela. Drohan, a rookie. Inexperience!

You are ok with sending a rookie out who’d shown up once, in the NLCS, where he  surrendered an earned run, two walks, and a hit in one inning’s work, to nail down a World Series sweep? But you’re not ok with sending out a sophomore who’s the likely National League Cy Young Award winner and gave you a 1.86 fielding-independent pitching rate in the first two postseason rounds?

That scratching sound you heard was Casey Stengel on his head from the Elysian Fields, trying to remind you of his law: If you have an opening, shove with your shoulder.

Then it was single, RBI single, single, and Ben Williamson becoming a Tampa Bay hero singling the game winner home Tuesday night. For the first time since the Series moved to Tampa in the first place, the racket inside the Trop belonged to the Rays fans who made up about half the audience.

Their joy lasted long enough for Misiorowski to take the Game Five ball, pitch five and two-thirds shutout innings, and get about ten times as many ground and (especially) fly outs as he got strikeouts (two). Now the racket belonged to the traveling Brewers faithful.

Now, it was stout Rays starting pitcher Drew Rasmussen going gamely forth on short rest and working four one-run, four-punchout innings, before yielding to a Rays bullpen whose needle was just about pointing to E.

Now, it was Series MVP Willson Contreras doing his usual steering of the ship from behind the plate, deploying the ABS system almost as though it had his name on it, and pitching in at the plate by thanking Christian Yelich for taking one on the leg for the team opening the top of the sixth with an RBI double right away.

Now, it was three more Brewers runs to come through that pen, from an RBI single in the fifth to the aforesaid Contreras double plus a long foul sacrifice fly in the sixth.

When Chandler Simpson, the Rays left fielder who turns basepaths and outfield routes into track meets, singled catcher Liam Hicks home in the bottom of the ninth, it seemed almost like the Rays were tempted to say excuse us before expiring.

They don’t need excuses. Both sides made a few mistakes along the way. Both sides took the other’s measure and found nothing wanting. Two teams who looked like an even match in abilities and approaches entered this World Series. The Brewers found ways to resemble the Third Army without a crowd big tanks or incendiary devices.

Even their fans found ways to persevere, especially when World Series ticket prices for the Milwaukee leg of the Series compared proportionally to the ancient, discredited $200 hammer. Brewers fans traveled to Tampa in such force that Tropicana Field could have been mistaken for the Brewers’s alternate or spring training digs. And American Family Field packed full regardless for showing Games Three through Five on the LEDs.

Nothing remained but for baseball itself to get the message that its government’s narrative about the Davids helpless against the Goliaths has always been a lie. The Brewers, no Goliaths they, have won five of the past six National League Central titles and six of the past nine. The Rays, except for shaky 2024 and 2025, have three American League East titles and a second place finish in the past seven years.

But The Narrative would have you think the Damndodgers coming thatclose to losing last year’s World Series before getting swept out of this year’s NL pennant was an aberration. It would have you think the Rays knocking the Empire Emeritus out this year in a division series sweep was a hiccup.

It would have you think anything except that the whining from Commissioner Pepperwinkle and his will-nots (remember: this isn’t haves versus have-nots, this is wills versus will-nots, and the wills aren’t limited to kabillionaires on the coasts) is a sales pitch for Uncle Rob’s Happy Henbane.

It would have you think that nothing means anything except the big player salaries that must be capped. It would have you think that there’s nothing wrong with under-investing in the kind of managing, coaching, training and medicine, scouting and player development, analytical minds and attitudinal minds.

The kind that enable a Pat Murphy to dismiss the Damndodgers as a lot of Hall of Famers who proved lesser than a lot of gamers. (The Damndodgers sure didn’t help their own cause by letting Shohei Ohtani play while still hurting, did they?)

Murphy knows better than that. He knows bloody well that it isn’t just dollars or Cooperstown candidates that make them the Damndodgers. He wouldn’t have hoisted the World Series trophy or sent his game sweatshirt to an eager Hall of Fame if he didn’t. But he’s entitled to be a smartass for a little while.

A will won the World Series. A will lost it after beating another will for a pennant. With Commissioner Pepperwinkle’s only-too-eager help, the will-nots will continue flogging the wrong horse. They’ll never get that this postseason and this World Series knocked Uncle Rob’s Happy Henbane harrumph into a cocked blue and gold hat.

WS Game One: “Just get the outs”

Posted on by
Reply

As closer Trevor Megill (right) takes an ump up on some extra keep-loose tosses, Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt watches a replay of the double play that wasn’t, compelling Megill to go after and punch out Rays center fielder Jonny DeLuca to end the Brewers’ World Series-opening win Friday night. (Fox Sports capture.)

Opening night for Les Mis in the World Series wasn’t exactly one for award consideration. It didn’t have to be. The company around him was more than able to save the show when he had an off night. An off night for him, not anyone else.

Jacob Misorowski with a five-inning line of three punchouts, four hits, one earned run, and a 2.50 fielding-independent pitching rate is an off night for the likely National League Cy Young Award winner whose regular season showed a 174.2-inning line of 252 punchouts,  a 2.17 FIP, and a 1.80 earned run average.

But it was enough to keep his Brewers in the game until manager Pat Murphy decided it was time to reach for the secondary cast. Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby made life difficult enough for the Rays, before Trevor Megill made it almost interesting enough for the Rays to overthrow the Brewers

Emphasis on almost.

The not-even-close-to-artificially-intelligent Brewers and not-even-close-to-artificially-intelligent Rays played it tight, overcame mistakes, and ground it out until the final outs that weren’t, before the Brewers held on tight to their 3-2 Game One win.

They had William Contreras to thank for a lot of it, their defense for a lot of it, the bullpen for a lot of the rest of it, and the replay review for the next-to-last act.

First, Contreras repaid longtime franchise face Christian Yelich for that bottom of the first RBI triple that just did elude diving Rays center fielder Jonny DeLuca. He slashed the first pitch he saw from Rays starter Nick Martinez through the hole at shortstop to send Yelich home and the Brewers to a nice, early 2-0 lead.

Then, with one out and Rays first baseman Jonathan Aranda (base hit) aboard in the sixth, Contreras caught Uribe’s swinging strikeout pitch to Rays left fielder Chandler Simpson and whipped a textbook perfect strike up the pipe to nail Aranda trying to swipe second.

Martinez, the elder Rays righthander who has a between-pitches habit of stepping up and down as though he’s peeking over a fence waiting for the right time to leap over and rob the place, settled well from there. He justified Rays manager Kevin Cash holding his own ace Drew Rasmussen until Game Two.

With the benefit of a run-scoring ground out by Liam Hicks in the top of the fourth to cut that lead in half, Martinez had his way with the Brewers for the most part the rest of his assignment.

He got away with Brewers right fielder Sal Frelick singling with one out in the second and helping himself to third after being bunted to second when he struck left fielder Jackson Chourio out to end the second.

He got away with murder in the fifth because Brewers third baseman David Hamilton took a bad turn rounding second trying to turn his one-out double into a triple, and the relay from right fielder Victor Mesa, Jr. to second baseman Ben Williamson to third baseman Junior Caminero was flawless enough to nail the diving Hamilton by a full foot plus.

Did that knock the Brewers into the oxygen tent?

Not a chance. Veteran Steven Matz—last seen in the World Series as a rookie with the 2015 Mets—shook off a pair of two-out walks in the sixth to escape and landed a pair of seventh-inning outs following a leadoff walk to Brewers rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt. Cash lifted Matz for Kevin Kelly, wanting the right-on-right match with Chourio.

Right on, the Brewers thought, when Chourio punched Pratt home with a base hit through the right side.

Naturally, things had to get more than interesting in the top of the ninth. As in, Brewers closer Trevor Megill allowing a pair of base hits (Aranda and Simpson) and a double steal, then walking the bases loaded for Hicks. Those hoping the Brewers might find their own Mariano Rivera some day had to settle for finding their own Craig Kimbrel Friday night.

Heaven help Megill if his mojo stops working. So far, he can work his way out of trouble of his own making faster than you can say “kill the save.” And he won’t say no to any help he can get. He got it Friday night, from Hicks and from his infield and from New York.

As in, Hicks grounding into what looked like a bang-bang-bang double play. As in, Caminero looking out at second, Hicks called out at first, and the Rays calling for a review. Megill wasn’t sure why. He may have been the only human being in American Family Field who wasn’t sure. At first. Then . . .

“I thought they were challenging the play at first,” he told reporters postgame. “I didn’t even think about it. I thought my cleat was dragging across the base. I just kind of looked at one of the umpires there and said, ‘Hey, what are you hearing in your ear?’ He said, ‘Uh, whatever, not too good. Do you want to throw some baseballs?”

The extra tosses did Megill a huge favour after replays showed Pratt covering second came off the pad before he had the ball to record the out while his throw on to first got Hicks. Meaning pinch runner Jorge Mateo was safe at home with the second Rays run and DeLuca checking in at the plate.

Once upon a time, that double play would have stood. It used to be called the infamous neighbourhood play. The out at second would be called if the fielder happened to be in the neighbourhood whether or not his foot hit the pad before he threw on. The crackdown on that play started around 2016. Bye, neighbour.

This was a night both sides didn’t exactly look like virtuosi on the bases, either. Now, though, Megill was hell bent on just blowing DeLuca away with two men still in scoring position. He dropped to 2-1 on fastballs, then dropped a delicious curve in on DeLuca to freeze him for strike two. 

“Anytime you can land a curveball at the bottom right there like that,” the husky righthander said, “it definitely sets up your next one. It’s just pitching and trusting what William is putting down back there.”

Contreras wanted that curve again. Megill was only too happy to oblige. He threw it, DeLuca swung through it, and the game belonged to the Brewers.

That’s not exactly what the Rays want to hear. This postseason, just the bullpen trinity of Uribe, Ashby, and Megill have a combined 0.95 earned run average, even if Megill likes to do it the hard way a little too often. Not the best pickings for a Rays team that was the American League’s best on the season but went 0-for-6 with men in scoring position Friday night.

“Has any team won a World Series with a starting rotation that was mostly just the nightly warm-up act for its bat-smothering relief crew?” asked The Athletic‘s Jayson Stark. “This is not a rhetorical question anymore.”

Megill had a non-rhetorical answer. “I don’t know, man. It just don’t matter how we get the outs,” he told Stark. “Just get the outs.”

Just get the outs. Because, as Yelich himself said postgame, “All of these games are going to be close. But it was good to get that first one.” Especially when it took forty-four years to get another crack at it.