first home run

MILWAUKEE — Sal Frelick tied the score with his first home run in three months, Cooper Pratt hit a go-ahead single in the seventh inning and the Milwaukee Brewers stunned the Tampa Bay Rays 5-4 on Saturday night for a 2-0 World Series lead by overcoming a four-run deficit for the second time in the postseason.

Tampa Bay, which won the AL pennant by forcing opponents into mistakes, committed one error, made two other misplays that could have been charged as errors and had a runner thrown out at the plate.

Down 4-0 in the first inning, Milwaukee rallied for its seventh comeback win of this postseason. The Brewers also rebounded from a 4-0 deficit to beat the Dodgers 6-4 in Game 4 of the NL Championship Series, completing a four-game sweep.

After losing Friday’s opener 3-2, the Rays burst ahead against rookie Logan Henderson, but the Brewers started to claw back with two runs in the bottom half against Tampa Bay ace Drew Rasmussen.

David Hamilton cut the deficit to 4-3 with a run-scoring grounder in the fourth and Frelick capped a nine-pitch at-bat against Ian Seymour in the sixth by driving a fastball over the center-field fence.

Frelick had gone 103 plate appearances without a home run since his July 11 drive off Pittsburgh’s Braxton Ashcraft and had not gone deep against a lefty pitcher since opening day against Tyler Gilbert of the Chicago White Sox. Frelick sped around the bases in 18.72 seconds, half the time of some theatrical trots this postseason.

Screaming fans at the second game of Milwaukee’s first World Series since 1982 were fired up during the seventh-inning stretch, dancing to the “Beer Barrel Polka” played by Mike Schneider, an accordionist from Clinton, Wis.

Brice Turang doubled against losing pitcher Tyler Wells on the second pitch of the bottom half, advanced on Garrett Mitchell’s flyout to right and scored when Pratt, a 22-year-old who debuted in June, looped a sinker from Kevin Kelly into short right field.

Abner Uribe pitched 1⅓ hitless innings for the win.

Jonny DeLuca doubled off Aaron Ashby starting the ninth, then Victor Mesa Jr. struck out when he couldn’t check his swing. Pinch-hitter Ben Williamson’s groundout advanced the runner and Yandy Díaz struck out when he couldn’t check his swing on a full-count pitch.

Ashby has three saves in the postseason while not allowing a run.

Milwaukee won its seventh straight game, becoming the fifth team to twice overcome four-run deficits for victories in a single postseason and the first since Philadelphia in 2022.

Game 3 of the matchup between teams seeking their first title is Monday night at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. where the Brewers last played in 2023.

Of the 57 previous teams to take 2-0 World Series leads, 46 claimed the championship.

Tampa Bay took a 4-2 lead in the highest-scoring Series first inning since 1993’s Game 4 as teams combined for seven hits, tying the most in an opening inning.

Still, Milwaukee improved to 13-0 in games started by Henderson, dating to his 2025 debut. He followed Jacob Misiorowski in the Brewers’ rotation, the first time teammates 24 or younger started the first two games of the Series since Cincinnati’s Gary Nolan and Ross Grimsley in 1972.

Henderson started on 11 days’ rest and struggled as the Rays fouled off 13 of 35 pitches in the first. He gave up four runs — three earned — in three innings.

Given an extra day of rest, Rasmussen gave up three runs and six hits over 3⅔ innings in his shortest start since July 9.

Pratt made his fourth error of the postseason at shortstop, the Brewers’ ninth in 10 games, bouncing his throw past first baseman Jake Bauers on a leadoff grounder by Díaz. Chandler Simpson and Junior Caminero followed with RBI singles, and Liam Hicks hit a two-run homer.

Jackson Chourio and Bauers started the bottom half with singles and first baseman Jonathan Aranda allowed Contreras’ one-out foul pop to bounce out of his mitt near netting in front of the seats.

With Bauers running on a full-count pitch, Contreras bounced an RBI single to the left of second baseman Richie Palacios, who had taken a step toward the base. Mitchell’s two-out single cut the deficit to 4-2.

Hamilton hit an RBI grounder in the fourth that bounced under Aranda’s legs for an error.

Chourio threw out Hicks from left for the final out of the sixth when third base coach Brady Williams waved the slow-footed catcher to try to score from second on Mesa’s single.

Blum writes for the Associated Press.

Two things can be true: The Dodgers’ season ended prematurely and, for Shohei Ohtani, the offseason couldn’t come soon enough.

Thursday’s elimination — a no-doubt-about-it sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers, who vanquished the Dodgers in the same fashion Ohtani and Co. had summarily eliminated them last season — was apparently the only way to get the two-way superstar out of the lineup.

Now he can get some much-needed rest and recovery, a reality check and, possibly, some surgical procedures to repair the knee and biceps injuries that plagued him this season.

Ohtani didn’t rule anything out in his postgame scrum, several rows deep, in front of his locker after the Dodgers’ 6-4 defeat in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series.

“Hard to tell at this point,” the 32-year-old Ohtani said in Japanese, via interpreter Will Ireton. “It’s something that’s going to be analyzed, discussed over the offseason, and see if that’s a viable thing to do.”

Hopefully, for the Dodgers’ sake and for baseball’s, Ohtani and his team will see their way to a reasonable load management plan. Hopefully they’ll find a viable injury management strategy.

Especially if he continues to pitch, as Ohtani said he plans to: “Yes, definitely, and looking forward to having a better season.”

Hopefully this bumpy season — his first as a Dodger to end short of the championship following the 2024 and 2025 title runs — will make Ohtani better. Wiser. More willing to listen to his body and to communicate what it’s telling him with the ball club that relies on him so much.

“I’ll always trust Shohei,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s the best player on the planet, and he’s not completely healthy. But I just give him a lot of respect for not running from it, still wanting to participate, still wanting to play when he’s not 100%.”

But hopefully when Ohtani’s knee barks next time, he won’t pitch through it. Hopefully when his right arm tightens up, he’ll step out of the box. Even — or especially — if it takes longer than a 15-day IL stint to make him right.

Hopefully he’s learned that irrespective of a sense of duty or pride or a selfish streak, the cold-hitting fact is that a compromised version of Ohtani leaves the Dodgers’ whole team — a $400 million investment — compromised, as it was this postseason.

“I don’t really want to take it for granted for the opportunity to be able to play with these guys,” Ohtani said. “But honestly, I think I’m just very disappointed.”

In eight playoff games against the Atlanta Braves and Brewers, Ohtani hit .192 (five for 26). He struck out 10 times. He didn’t get an extra-base hit or drive in a run until Thursday, in the season finale, which reminded us of Ohtani’s power — he walloped his first home run since Aug. 18, a three-run missile in the second inning that traveled 428 feet — and his pain.

Roberts looked, for a moment, like a genius for continuing to keep Ohtani in the lineup — and to pencil him in as the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter after batting him sixth on Wednesday.

For that one shining moment.

Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run in the second inning of the Dodgers’ 6-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the NLCS on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

But Ohtani also struck out three times Thursday — made to look foolish in a much-too-familiar way.

The Dodgers needed a healthy Ohtani to deal with a young, hungry ballclub like the Brewers.

To have a chance against a team that was, as Dodgers utility man Kiké Hernández said, “almost playing perfect baseball,” they needed him dialed in and not tinkering, not staying late searching.

They need the version of him that delivered the perfect game a year ago, his three-home-run, 10-strikeout masterpiece that sent Milwaukee home in Game 4 of the NLCS.

“Ohtani is arguably the best player in the world,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.

“He’s proven that to us. He had the greatest game I’ve ever seen played by an individual player last year against us.”

The Dodgers need that guy striking fear into opponents. Not him striking out, or getting stranded helplessly on base.

Shohei Ohtani tosses his bat after hitting a three-run home run against the Milwaukee Brewers during the Dodgers’ 6-4 loss in Game 4 of the NLCS on Thursday at Dodger Stadium.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

And they got a glimpse of that guy Thursday with that second-inning home run, a shot that had him throwing his arms up and screaming toward his dugout, as emotive as we’ve seen him, relieved and exulting after giving the Dodgers a 4-0 lead — and a fleeting expectation that they’d play a Game 5 on Friday.

“It was a lot of pent-up anger, frustration,” Roberts said. “It was the best ball he hit in probably two, three months, and it was a big hit.”

“It was like,” Max Muncy said, “that’s the swing we’ve been waiting for.”

Now we all wait for baseball to return — and then to learn what this season taught Ohtani, one of the most unique athletes in the history of the game.

“Not quite satisfied with how things shaped up on the pitching side at the end of the year,” Ohtani said. “… I haven’t been able to really come to grips in terms of what I’ve learned overall. It’s something that I’m going to kind of go back to the drawing board in terms of treatment, training program, and see what I can come up with for next season.”