Ben Williamson Was 1 for 15 in the Postseason. He Walked Off Game 4 and Kept the Rays Alive.
Kevin Cash turned around in the Tampa Bay dugout in the bottom of the 12th inning Tuesday night and told Ben Williamson to get ready to hit. Williamson had one hit in 15 postseason at-bats and nothing at all in the World Series. He swung at the first fastball Shane Drohan threw him, chopped it past Jake Bauers into shallow right field, and the Rays were still alive.
Tampa Bay 4, Milwaukee 3, in 12 innings. The Brewers still lead this series 3-1 and are still one win from the first title in franchise history. They are also learning the oldest lesson in October, which is that the last out is the hardest one to get.
The Rays never trailed by more than a run
This was not a comeback in the usual sense. Tampa Bay led 1-0 in the second on a Chandler Simpson RBI double, went up 2-1 in the fourth when Junior Caminero scored on an errant throw from David Hamilton, and then sat in a 2-2 tie from the fifth inning all the way through the 11th.
Hamilton tied it with a 391-foot solo home run off Griffin Jax, which was the last pitch Jax threw. His line: four innings, two earned runs, two walks, six strikeouts, 74 pitches.
Cooper Pratt broke it. The Brewers rookie led off the 12th with a solo shot to left-center off Ian Seymour, the first postseason home run of his career and the first extra-inning home run a rookie has ever hit in a World Series. Pratt called it one of the coolest swings of his life. Then he said the part he will be replaying for a while: “But it’s over.”
Milwaukee ran out of arms and nobody was warming
Pat Murphy handed the bottom of the 12th to Shane Drohan, who had not pitched in 11 days and was making the second playoff appearance of his life. Drohan faced four hitters and retired none of them.
Caminero reached when Joey Ortiz short-hopped a routine throw across the infield. Liam Hicks singled. Jonny DeLuca lined a single up the middle to tie the game. Simpson, after missing two bunt attempts, singled up the middle to load the bases with nobody out. Williamson came off the bench to hit for Victor Mesa Jr. and ended it on the first pitch he saw.
There was nobody warming in the Milwaukee bullpen behind Drohan. If this series turns, that is the detail Murphy answers questions about all winter.
What Tampa Bay actually joined
The Rays are the fifth World Series team to force a Game 5 after falling behind 3-0, joining the 2024 Yankees, the 1970 Reds, the 1937 Giants and the 1910 Cubs. None of those four got as far as a Game 6. Across all best-of-seven postseason series, 44 teams have gone down 3-0 and exactly one, the 2004 Red Sox, came back to win.
Williamson is the first pinch hitter to end a World Series game with a walk-off hit since Gene Larkin in Game 7 of the 1991 Series. It was Tampa Bay’s first home World Series win since 2008, and it ended a Milwaukee postseason winning streak that had reached eight games and tied a major league record.
Murphy’s summary of the night was blunt: “We hit seven balls that were above 97 tonight that got caught.”
Game 5 is a bullpen game against the Cy Young favorite
First pitch Wednesday is 8 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field, the last home game of Tampa Bay’s season either way. Milwaukee has Jacob Misiorowski on regular rest, and he gave up one run in five innings in Game 1. The Rays had not named a starter, which means a bullpen game after Nick Martinez threw 33 pitches and Bryan Baker worked two innings on Tuesday.
Cash’s plan is the only one available to him. “I’m going to guess most guys are going to say they’re capable of an inning or more given it’s Game 5 of the World Series,” he said. Milwaukee should still win this series. Tampa Bay has spent four games proving that should is doing a lot of work.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
