Rays Rally Past Brewers in 12 Innings, Stay Alive in World Series

The Tampa Bay Rays avoided elimination in the World Series early Wednesday morning, scoring twice in the bottom of the 12th inning to beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-3, at Tropicana Field. Ben Williamson, pinch-hitting with the bases loaded, grounded a single to right field that brought home the winning run and sent the stadium's remaining crowd into a release of noise more than four hours after first pitch.

The win, Tampa Bay's first of the series, cuts Milwaukee's lead to 3-1 and forces a Game 5 on Wednesday night, again at Tropicana Field, with the Brewers one win from their first championship since 1982. According to MLB.com's recap of the game, the contest lasted 12 innings and four hours and 20 minutes, the longest game of this year's Series.

A Back-and-Forth Night

Tampa Bay led first. Chandler Simpson doubled home Jonny DeLuca in the second inning off Brewers starter Dustin May for a 1-0 Rays lead. Milwaukee answered in the fourth when Cooper Pratt's double drove in Sal Frelick to tie the score, but the Rays regained the lead in the bottom of that same inning when Junior Caminero scored on a throwing error by Brewers third baseman David Hamilton. Hamilton erased that deficit himself in the top of the fifth with a solo home run off Rays starter Griffin Jax, tying the score at 2-2, where it stayed through the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh innings as both bullpens worked around trouble.

The deadlock broke in the 12th. Pratt, batting against Rays reliever Ian Seymour, hit a solo home run to left-center to put Milwaukee ahead 3-2. In the bottom half, Caminero reached on an error by Brewers third baseman Joey Ortiz, and after a pinch-runner swap, Liam Hicks singled and DeLuca followed with a single up the middle that tied the game at 3-3. Simpson then singled to load the bases, setting up Williamson's walk-off hit off reliever Shane Drohan.

Records Inside the Result

Beyond the final score, the night produced a cluster of individually notable performances. Pratt's 12th-inning homer was the 29th extra-inning home run in World Series history and the first ever hit by a rookie in that situation, according to a stats-and-facts review MLB.com published the morning after the game. Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio, 22, recorded multiple hits for the fourth straight game to open this World Series, a feat the league's research cited as accomplished by only ten players in Series history and only one other, Todd Zeile in 2000, within the last four decades. His ten hits through four games also matched Babe Ruth's total across the first four games of the 1928 Series, per the same MLB.com account.

On the mound, Brewers reliever Aaron Ashby threw 2 1/3 more scoreless innings, extending his scoreless streak this postseason to 18 innings. That MLB.com review credited the streak as the longest run of consecutive scoreless relief innings within a single postseason, surpassing the 16-inning mark Cleveland's Andrew Miller set in 2016. The Rays, meanwhile, became just the fifth team in World Series history to force a Game 5 after trailing 3-0, joining the 2024 Yankees, the 1970 Reds, the 1937 Giants and the 1910 Cubs — none of whom went on to force a Game 6, a detail that frames how steep Tampa Bay's remaining climb still is even after Tuesday's win. The win also marked the first walk-off victory by a team facing a sweep since the St. Louis Cardinals' David Freese did it against Texas in 2011, also on October 27.

Pressure Shifts, Briefly, Back to Tampa

For Milwaukee, the loss ended an eight-game postseason winning streak and denied the club a chance to close out the Series in four straight games, something no team has done while also sweeping its league championship series. Brewers manager Pat Murphy's club had not trailed in a game since early in the League Championship Series, and the Game 4 collapse in extra innings was the first sign of vulnerability in an otherwise dominant October. Outfielder Christian Yelich, pursuing his first championship in Milwaukee, acknowledged afterward that the club had been pushed into uncomfortable territory it had largely avoided all month.

For the Rays, the win buys at least one more game and validates a bullpen-heavy approach that manager Kevin Cash has leaned on throughout the postseason. Cash, describing the rally that tied the game in the 12th, called it:

"Maybe the most important inning of our season."

Seymour, who worked around Pratt's homer before the Rays' half of the inning, put it more simply afterward, saying the team had earned itself one more day. Pratt, for his part, called his go-ahead swing one of the better moments of his young career, even as his team ultimately lost the game.

What's Next

Game 5 is scheduled for Wednesday night at Tropicana Field, first pitch at 8 p.m. Eastern, broadcast on Fox. Milwaukee is expected to start rookie right-hander Jacob Misiorowski, while Tampa Bay had not announced a starter as of Wednesday morning, according to a report from Yahoo Sports. A Rays win would send the Series back to Milwaukee for a potential Game 6 on Friday; a Brewers win would give the franchise its first World Series title since 1982, when it was still playing in the American League. The full remaining schedule, including contingency dates through a possible Game 7 on Halloween, is listed on Major League Baseball's official World Series schedule page.

Both clubs will lean heavily on their bullpens again. Milwaukee's relief corps, with Ashby at the center of it, has been the backbone of the team's run to the brink of a championship, a point reinforced on both the Brewers' official team site and in postseason coverage generally. Tampa Bay, which built its roster around pitching depth rather than a traditional rotation, will need another extended effort from relievers such as Nick Martinez and Seymour if the Series is to reach a sixth game, a strategy detailed further on the Rays' official site. A further breakdown of Tuesday's box score, including full pitching lines, appeared in Bleacher Report's game coverage.