Usually for a playoff game writeup I do one new custom but I couldn't decide between these two. Frelick's longball put the win into motion, but Ashby's been incredible all month and Murphy's decision to keep him in sealed the deal.
Anyway, the Brewers. We knew they'd be good. We knew they'd get a lot done in a World Series. But this is insane. How do you go into a game where the narrative is 'either Drew Rasmussen or Logan Henderson is going to be the first to shed blood tonight' and none of that is the takeaway. Logan Henderson got beat up in inning one and did not get the loss despite being the only Brewers pitcher to give up any runs. Such is the power of the Brewers' bullpen, where JoJo Romero, D.L. Hall, Dustin May, Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby can completely silence you, even if you are the literal Tampa Bay Rays.
You saw how close they got to adding on. You saw what needed to be worked around to ensure clean frames. Even if they were quiet after the first, people like Chandler Simpson, Jonathan Aranda, Junior Caminero and Jonny DeLuca still kept charging forward. Despite both teams having a very similar RISP ratio this game, the people that stayed on base for Tampa were far more crucial than the ones that Tampa stranded. Because the Rays' bullpen, as good as they can be, allowed the Brewers to keep chipping away. The errors from Aranda and Simpson piled up, Wells and Seymour continued their rough stretches, Frelick hit the homer and Pratt flipped the game. These teams had the exact same effort; the difference is the Brewers' bullpen was just way better.
Now, this could be what the Rays wanted, wasting a ton of the Brewers' pen arms, because there's still at least two more games up for grabs, preferably four if you're Tampa. The Brewers will likely be going with Robert Gasser in Game 3, and they luckily still have Trevor Megill, Antonio Senzatela, Shane Drohan, Kyle Harrison and, possibly waiting for a start, Brandon Woodruff, not burned out from Game 2. But the Rays will be starting Freddy Peralta, who wants revenge, and has been terrific in this stretch. Using up the bullpen in Game 2 could set up a much needed Rays win at home in Game 3. So the Brewers need to withstand whichever tricks the Rays come up with and keep the series from spoiling over.
A lot of people online are starting to think the Brewers are cheating, especially because of the Frelick homer. It's a lot easier to accept that the Rays haven't been playing well, the balls the Brewers took advantage of were mistakenly placed, and the whole team has been developed for great contact moments all year. If they were cheating, there'd be more of an actual sign [like a trash can bang] than just 'well I don't like that they're winning'. This isn't the Astros, I'm not getting an 'evil empire' feel from this, they're a great team who's been building to this for a while and have built for sustained success. The 2017 Astros went from 3rd to a title in a year, and competed for like 7 years straight. It's a different thing.
Anyway, Game 3 should be really interesting. If the Brewers can win that one, even with Peralta on the mound, then you can write off Tampa.
No comments:
Post a Comment