Brewers Rally From 4-0 Down to Beat the Rays 5-4 and Lead the World Series 2-0
Tampa Bay scored four times in the first inning, then Milwaukee's bullpen shut the door while Sal Frelick tied it and Cooper Pratt drove in the go-ahead run, with a check-swing call ending the game.
Sunday, October 25, 2026/2 min read
Four runs, five batters, and then nothing. The Tampa Bay Rays hit Milwaukee's Logan Henderson hard in the first inning of World Series Game 2 on Saturday night, and the Brewers spent the rest of the evening taking it back. Milwaukee won 5-4 at American Family Field and leads the best-of-seven series 2-0, MLB.com reported, after winning Game 1 on Friday.
The Brewers' bullpen did the damage in the end. Five Brewers relievers kept Tampa Bay scoreless after the first, according to Bleacher Report.
How did the Rays score four in the first?
Chandler Simpson and Junior Caminero drove in runs with singles, and Liam Hicks then hit a two-run homer to right, according to Bleacher Report. The Brewers answered at once, with William Contreras and Garrett Mitchell each driving in a run in the bottom of the first to make it 4-2. Drew Rasmussen, the Rays' starter, lasted 3.2 innings, MLB.com said, his shortest and least effective start of the postseason.
What turned the game?
A Rays error by first baseman Jonathan Aranda in the fourth let Cooper Pratt score and cut the gap to one. In the sixth, Sal Frelick hit a leadoff solo homer off Ian Seymour to tie it at 4-4, Milwaukee's first home run of the Series. In the seventh, Pratt, who had made a first-inning error, lined an opposite-field single that brought Brice Turang home from third for a 5-4 lead, CBS Sports reported. It was Pratt's first career playoff RBI.
Tampa Bay nearly answered in the ninth. Jonny DeLuca doubled to lead off and reached third on a groundout. With two outs and a 3-2 count, Yandy Diaz was rung up by Aaron Ashby on a check-swing ruling that OutKick said "could have went either way." Ashby recorded the last five outs. He has now thrown 15 and two-thirds scoreless postseason innings, one out short of Andrew Miller's 2016 record, MLB.com said.
What is the cost of the first-inning hole?
Tampa Bay finished with seven hits to Milwaukee's 11 and did not score again after the first, OutKick noted. Hicks was the only Rays batter to leave a clear mark, with a home run and two runs batted in. Cam Booser, Kevin Kelly and Ian Seymour followed Rasmussen out of the Rays' bullpen, with Kelly working on consecutive days, and closer Bryan Baker has not yet pitched in the Series, MLB.com noted. That is a lot of leverage left unused, and Game 3 is where it either arrives or does not.
What happens in Game 3?
The series moves to Tropicana Field on Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern, and the Rays need to find answers quickly. Teams that win the first two games of a best-of-seven have won 79 of 95 such series, OutKick noted. Freddy Peralta starts for Tampa Bay, and he has been close to unhittable lately, with a 7-0 record and 0.89 ERA over his last 10 outings, MLB.com said.
Our earlier piece on how the two clubs got here is Rays and Brewers meet in a World Series. On Saturday Milwaukee's depth showed: Contreras had two hits and made the tag at the plate in the sixth, and the bullpen did not blink.
Published in The Outspoken Digest
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