STREET. PETERSBURG — Ben Williamson has resurrected the Rays. Tampa Bay came within just three outs of elimination at the hands of the Brewers in Game 4 of the World Series before launching a stunning comeback in the 12th inning to prevail 4-3 in a cinematic thriller Tuesday night at Tropicana Field. With two on board and Shane Drohan on the hill, Jonny DeLuca drove in the tying run with a single and Chandler Simpson singled to load the bases before Williamson came in as a pinch-hitter and hit a high bouncer, a true Baltimore hit, to right to score pinch-runner Nick Fortes with the winning run. “Walking on Sunshine” blared from the speakers for a Rays team that somehow escaped the darkness. There had been 16 previous victories in World Series history by a team facing elimination. In reality, 13 of them had been in extra innings and six had been in the 11th inning or later like this one. But the only previous team to do so while facing a sweep, like these Rays, was the 1910 Cubs. The Brewers were trying to not only win the first title in franchise history, but also become the first team to win nine in a row in the playoffs and the first team to sweep both a best-of-seven LCS and a World Series. Just when it looked like rookie shortstop Cooper Pratt’s solo home run in the top of the 12th would launch the Brewers into the history books, the Rays found a way to survive at least one more day, specifically Wednesday, when they will play their final home game of 2026 and hope to bring this back to Milwaukee. The Rays had played so poorly in the first three games of this Series that, at a time in the baseball calendar when a week feels like a month, you could be forgiven for forgetting how good they really are. The defense, the approach at the plate, and the aggressive but not reckless baserunning that had defined their rise to the top of the American League East and their quest for the American League pennant were completely gone. They beat themselves as badly as they had in Games 1 and 2, and then completely collapsed in Game 3. So Tampa Bay didn’t have the luxury of thinking about winning four games or even one. “Win an inning,” president of baseball operations Erik Neander said before Game 4. They knew they had to start there and they did. Specifically, they won the second inning, when a Simpson double brought DeLuca back from first to give the Rays a 1-0 lead. Of course, a lead over the Brewers these days seems like a date with disappointment. Sure enough, the Brewers answered when Pratt hit his own RBI double to left to score Sal Frelick from first and tie it at 1 in the top of the fourth. The Rays were able to regain the lead when, in a twist to the script of this series so far, they pressured the Brewers into some defensive drama in the bottom of the inning. Third baseman David Hamilton fielded a DeLuca grounder and bunted on Junior Caminero as the Rays star advanced from second to third, then threw errantly to first, allowing Caminero to score. A replay of the potential tag challenge (it couldn’t be reviewed whether Caminero had gone off course for third) confirmed that Hamilton’s double bad play had given the Rays a 2-1 lead. But because the Brewers are going to be the Brewers, it took Hamilton just a few minutes to atone for the mistake by sending a blast deep into the right field seats for a solo shot in the fifth inning that tied the score at 2. The situation remained clouded when the Rays’ golden opportunity on a leadoff single by Yandy Diaz in the sixth was snuffed out by a fantastic play by Brewers second baseman Brice Turang. He made a tough trap off Jonathan Aranda’s scorching 101.8 mph line and then fired to first in time to catch Diaz out of the bag for a big double play. It was also marred because Rays starter Nick Martinez was successfully called up for two scoreless innings of relief, a boon to Tampa Bay’s all-hands-on-deck effort. Their closer Bryan Baker contributed two scoreless innings, thanks in part to Simpson catching a Garrett Mitchell fly ball that could have gone for extra bases by popping off the left-field wall, and then Pratt’s safe steal of second base was overturned by a replay review to end the ninth. Brewers reliever Aaron Ashby continued his incredible October by keeping the Rays off the bases in the ninth, 10th and part of the 11th. He surpassed Andrew Miller’s record from 2016 (16 innings) by reaching 18 consecutive shutout innings of relief to start this postseason. The Rays, of course, got big outs (from starter-turned-reliever Martinez, Baker, Tyler Wells and Cam Booser) to continue to avoid elimination and live to fight another inning. Pratt’s shot off Ian Seymour in the 12th minute looked like it would put out the Rays’ lights. The many Milwaukeeans who had infiltrated the Trop made their loudest noise yet, and Brewers players emerged from the dugout to celebrate the biggest of Pratt’s four hits that night. Somehow, the Rays weren’t fazed. Not to be overlooked, Seymour got NLCS MVP Jake Bauers out to end the top of the 12th after a Jackson Chourio double gave the Brewers a chance to really get open. That loomed large when the resilient Rays rallied.
