ST. PETERSBURG, Florida. — There comes a time in every battle when exhaustion overcomes reason. When the body can no longer invoke what the mind demands. When even hope, sometimes the most tenacious of human instincts, begins to give way.
Then comes the cruelest realization of all. The one that settles in the pit of the stomach before slipping between the ears and whispering:
We can’t beat these guys.
For the Rays, this realization could have come at the start of the fifth inning of Game 3 on Monday against the Brewers.
Their hearts were torn from their chests under the gaze of a sold-out Tropicana Field, where 40,388 fans gathered, hoping to witness redemption. Instead, they were left with a reckoning.
A 10-1 score, to be exact, which puts them on the brink of elimination from this year’s World Series.
It’s easy to point to the seven straight hits that produced eight runs. All with two outs. But look a little closer. The resignation began long before the pain took hold. Before the pulse suddenly stops.
The tone was set when Jackson Chourio hit his third straight single against Freddy Peralta with one out in the fifth.
That’s when the bullpen started to get restless.
That’s when Peralta’s pitch count continued to climb toward 87 on the night. It was then that his breathing became deeper, as if he sensed the bloodbath that awaited him if he failed to regain command. That’s when his mechanics started to betray him, landing on his front end too early and stealing his usual extension.
And that’s when he started reaching for the bill of his cap a little more frequently, searching for something to occupy his hands while his mind wrestled with the inevitable: The Brewers.
“I think they’re good at not trying to do too much,” Peralta said afterward. “They do a good job putting the ball in play, trying to shoot the ball in play and walking. I think I felt good, but my changeup didn’t land well tonight.”
He sent Jake Bauers away. But then Chourio stole second place. And then he walked Christian Yelich for six pitches.
Cameron Booser then got the call from the Rays bullpen. Just like Cole Sulser.
Reality had finally failed. The reality itself: the Rays had spent the evening trying to distance themselves, only to lose themselves in the effort.
Seven consecutive hits. Eight races. All with two outs. A 2-0 lead had suddenly become a 10-point graveyard.
“They were coughing up good pitches and putting balls in play,” said Booser, who allowed four runs in that inning without recording an out. This is good programming. Things seem to be going their way at the moment, so that’s unfortunate. The worst feeling in the world. You feel like you’re letting your team down.”
But that’s what the Brewers do.
They defeated and mocked a Dodgers heavyweight who seemed capable of rivaling the Yankees dynasties of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
They challenge their opponents to take the lead, just so they can take it back.
They dare to take on opposing lineups only to go scoreless through the first four or five innings, knowing what awaits them once the game falls into the hands of men named Uribe, Ashby, Megill, Romero and Hall.
Imagine this fear setting in.
Opposing batters grip their bats a little tighter.
Defenders start moving a little faster than the game requires.
Just look at Tampa Bay, one of the most fundamentally sound clubs in baseball, now withering under the pressure that Milwaukee has become so adept at manufacturing.
Victor Mesa Jr.’s error in the third inning cost the Rays a run. It was the club’s third mistake in two matches.
The Brewers aren’t just capitalizing on their mistakes. They make opponents fear committing them.
“With them, they execute really well, and that’s what the results say,” Tampa outfielder Chandler Simpson said.
But the execution is only a fragment of the torment.
Because what does it really mean for William Contreras to challenge a called ball to Junior Caminero, and be proven right again, in the bottom of the fifth inning, other than to administer another dose of novocaine to the Rays’ already numbing pain?
Or for Sal Frelick to prepare for an eighth-inning dive with a 10-run lead, other than to preserve what was then a staff-wide hitter?
That’s what brought them here.
The Brewers want to bury their opposition. Have no pity. Leave no reminder of what success could be, just in case their opponents start believing in it again.
Or, as their manager, Pat Murphy, puts it: “We want to step on your throat.” »
And they did. The hardest of fashions.
Milwaukee allowed Tampa Bay to believe it could compete in the first two games, winning each by a single run, only to force the Rays like a father who is tired of letting his child believe he can win a brutal, innocent game.
The Brewers sent out Nick Martinez, Drew Rasmussen and Peralta just as they sent out Tarik Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Blake Snell.
Griffin Jax is waiting. Just like Tyler Glasnow did in the NLCS two weeks ago.
The Rays can’t beat these guys.
Not this group. And inside the clubhouse, much like in Los Angeles after Game 3, there was a feeling of that.
There is still a lot to play for. The Rays know it. They will compete.
But there was still a sense of peace, not demoralization, hanging over the Tampa Bay clubhouse. The Rays didn’t play their best baseball. But sometimes the explanation is simpler than we want to admit.
The other team is simply better. The Brewers are simply better.
And now they’re one win away from the first World Series championship in franchise history.
“This is a best-of-seven series,” Murphy said. “It seems like we’re in charge, but that’s baseball. Anything can happen. I like the way we fight. I’m going to pick us when we can.”
At this point, the Rays could also choose Milwaukee.
Gn sports
