The Milwaukee Brewers just laid a beatdown of epic proportions on the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 3 of the World Series, winning 10-1. They’re on the verge of the franchise’s first-ever World Series title.
The bulk of the scoring was done in the 5th inning, when the Brewers strung together seven two-out hits and scored eight runs on those two-out hits. The offense was humming.
Pat Murphy
The whole 5th inning got rolling because the Captain, Christian Yelich, was able to hustle to second to beat an ill-advised throw
from Junior Caminero.
“The whole game was changed when Yeli was safe at second. That’s just a hustle play. When your leader makes that play, that says it all. The game was changed because he did a little thing that anybody can do. The first baseman with the right-handed hitter played way off. Yeli took advantage of that, got as far out as he could, safe at second. That’s a game changer right there. That gives you another pitch, and that’s sometimes all you need. Another pitch is enough. Turang comes out huge. We get the starter out of the game. Freddy threw the ball great, and we got a dumper knock -another dumper knock over the third baseman’s head. It is not like we were hitting them hard. Chourio had two hard contacts, but he was doing fine. Then with two outs, Yeli makes that play. That was just vintage leadership. Then Turang has a huge at-bat and opens the game up.” Murphy said.
The hustle to keep the inning alive and then each guy one after another delivering a big hit to keep the line moving, in the span of about 12 pitches, was insanely impressive. It’s who the Brewers are. But Murphy was also quick to point out that the Rays are capable of that, too.
“Whether it’s one out, two out, whatever it is, the guys play hard. It’s evident the guys play hard. They don’t give in. They make every pitch count, and that’s what it takes to win. That’s the same thing that Tampa did all year. That team is very, very capable. This is a best-of-seven series. It looks like we’re in the driver’s seat, but it’s baseball. Anything can happen.”
The job’s not finished yet. Pat Murphy is making sure that everyone is aware of that and that anything can happen. That’s part of why confidence is so high in this group getting it done.
Then in the 9th inning, Murphy turned to his veteran arm, Brandon Woodruff, who has been out since July 4th with a shoulder injury. Woodruff was miraculously able to make it back for the World Series and got his moment.
“You don’t get to play in the World Series too often in life. Woody’s been in the game, I don’t know how many years. Like this would be season 10, I believe, in the Big Leagues or parts of season 10. To give him a chance to go out there, he busted his fanny to do it, and it’s important to do that. Yeah, it was a great moment. I felt great about it. I think the guys did too.” Murphy said.
Brandon Woodruff
Woodruff, in talking to reporters after the game, said that Murphy gave him the choice to either finish off Game 3 with the 9th inning or to start Game 4. Woodruff said, “In perfect Murphy fashion, he sends (trainer) Bryn (Hester) down and asks if I want to throw the ninth or wait until tomorrow and I told him ‘I want it right now.’”
There was certainly going to be poetry to either option. Having Woodruff start Game 4 would have been a lovely setup for a World Series clinching game. Also having him close out a guaranteed Game 3 victory also had a sweet feel to it. Being the players’ manager that he is, Murphy gave Woodruff the option and he chose to finish out Game 3.
Did Woodruff take a moment to take it all in?
“Not really. I can’t help myself. I try to lock in as much as I can.” Woodruff said. “I wish I would’ve peeked a little bit more, looked around a little bit…I’ll soak this one in for tonight and then tomorrow, maybe I’m crazy I’ll try to be ready to go again tomorrow.”
Woodruff doing a back-to-back out of the bullpen surely would be a surprise, but if there’s another big lead, why not let him finish this?
Sal Frelick
The Brewers succeed by pressuring other teams into making mistakes and then taking advantage of them. They’ve done that all season and they’ve been doing that in this World Series. The normally sure-handed Rays are making many a defensive and mental mistakes. One of them was Caminero throwing to second instead of first to get a slow-footed William Contreras in that fifth inning.
It was a big mistake in hindsight, but as Sal Frelick points out, Christian Yelich’s extra lead and uncommon hustle led to that becoming a mistake by Caminero.
“Yeah, I think it’s great when you have speed up and down the lineup. It puts a little pressure on the defense that they’ve got to rid of it quick. Just to highlight it, don’t want it to go under the radar or anything, but that base running by Yeli there which allowed us to have that huge inning. Like that’s things we work on. We work on those things in spring. He’s the guy that’s running the meeting saying this is important. It’s his 14th season. He’s been All-Star, Silver Slugger, MVP, and nobody cares about base running more than him. Just to see him do that, get a good secondary, run as hard as he could and beat that out, that’s what allowed us able to have that big inning. Little things like that, that’s what makes our team great.” Frelick said.
And that inning put the Brewers up by 10 over the Rays. That kind of blowout allowed the Brewers the option to go with Brandon Woodruff in the 9th inning. As much as fans were excited to see Woodruff back, Frelick talked about how excited he and the rest of the team was to see him out there.
“There’s very few times that I kind of feel like at the point of a game I kind of turn into a fan. And when I was watching him run from the bullpen, I was kind of sitting on the top step like kind of in that, oh, my gosh, this is so cool. His family’s here. His kids are here. It’s the World Series. He was home contemplating what the future held, and next thing you know, he’s toeing the rubber. I turned around when I was running out, and the whole bench was standing up clapping. Like I don’t know if any other player on any other team gets that sort of recognition for running out of the bullpen. It’s just a testament to the type of person he is, his character, his leadership, and just how much he means to the team.” Frelick said.
This team is as focused and locked in as they can possibly be. They’re looking to finish this thing off in Game 4 and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone if they do at this point.
