The Brewers walked out of Game 4 with the kind of loss that can linger: a 4-3 walkoff defeat in 12 innings, with a title still dangling just out of reach. They are still up three games to one in the World Series, but Wednesday brings another try, and Jacob Misiorowski will be on the mound for it.
That alone keeps Milwaukee in a strong position. The 24-year-old right-hander, the presumptive National League Cy Young Award winner, gets the ball in Game 5 after the Rays turned Tuesday night at Tropicana Field into a gut punch. Rookie Cooper Pratt’s go-ahead homer in the top of the 12th gave the Brewers a lead, only for Joey Ortiz’s throwing error to open the door in the bottom half and trigger a two-run rally that ended the game.
The Brewers know the history they’re fighting against, too: of the four teams that have clawed back from a 3-0 deficit to force a Game 5, none has ever reached Game 6. Milwaukee will try to become the first.
Misiorowski, who was in the bullpen late in Game 4 but was never going to be used, should be their answer. Pat Murphy said the club didn’t want to risk burning him in relief and lose the chance to start him on four days’ rest if the series got this far.
“You can't blow that type of situation on a one-run lead on the road,” Murphy said. “If we were in the 13th inning and we had a three-run lead, that might have been a little bit different. Probably still wouldn't have.”
Now the Brewers need the arm they’ve leaned on all postseason. Misiorowski has been terrific in his three Game 1 starts against the Padres, Dodgers and Rays, going 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA, and he held Tampa Bay to one run on four hits over five innings in World Series Game 1. The workload is real - 188 innings between the regular season and postseason - but he doesn’t sound worried about the shorter rest.
“It’s nothing new,” he said. “I’m used to it in the Minor Leagues going Tuesday-Sunday, so this isn’t a new phenomenon.”
Milwaukee also has to do something it has barely had to do lately: bounce back immediately from a loss. The club has managed that only once in the past 35 days, when it answered a loss to the Padres in NLDS Game 3 with a win in Game 4.
Tuesday’s game was tense from the start and stayed that way. The Brewers fell behind 1-0, then 2-1, before moving in front 3-2 in what became their first extra-inning game of this postseason.
The bullpen picture grew complicated fast, especially after Trevor Megill was used for just one batter at the end of the eighth. With Misiorowski serving only as insurance, Murphy and pitching coordinator Jim Henderson tried to piece together the 12th with Antonio Senzatela working a second straight day.
That plan cracked almost immediately. Junior Caminero opened the bottom of the inning with a chopper to deep third, where Ortiz charged and fielded it cleanly enough - then bounced the throw. Bauers couldn’t handle it, and the inning unraveled from there.
“There’s no excuse,” Ortiz said. “Not one at all. I should make that play every [bleeping] time.”
Brewers third-base coach and infield guru Matt Erickson wasn’t about to bury his guy.
“There's not a person on the field I want the ball hit to more than him," he said.
It was the second damaging third-base mistake for Milwaukee. In the fourth inning, starter David Hamilton missed a tag on Caminero as he tried to advance from second to third on a bouncer.
The Brewers thought Caminero had gone outside the baseline, but the call never came. Hamilton then threw wildly, and Caminero scored what became a critical run.
Even so, that play never carried the same weight as the 12th-inning mistake, because by then the Brewers were three outs from a championship. Once Ortiz’s error opened the inning, rookie Shane Drohan, making his World Series debut, inherited a runner and never got an out. The Rays strung together four straight singles and finished it with Ben Williamson’s pinch-hit single to shallow right.
The sting was made worse by the way Milwaukee hit the ball all night. The Brewers produced 12 of the game’s 13 hardest-hit balls, yet managed only three runs.
And still, the series lead remains Milwaukee’s. Christian Yelich summed up the challenge ahead without dressing it up.
“You’ve got to battle through some hard things, right?” Yelich said.
“You’re going to face hard stuff. You know that going into it.
We’ve talked about that a lot as a group, how it’s supposed to be hard. This stuff is not supposed to be easy.
It’s supposed to test you.
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