WORLD SERIES: GAME 2
The Rays’ Joey Wendle connects for a two-run double during the fourth inning against the Dodgers in Game 2 of the World Series on Wednesday night. Brandon Lowe hit two home runs as the Rays won 6-4 to even the series at 1-1.
ARLINGTON, Texas – Brandon Lowe busted out early and Tampa Bay’s bullpen hung on late.
Rays and Dodgers, tied after two in Texas.
Lowe shook loose from his extended postseason slump with two oppositefield homers, and Tampa Bay held off Los Angeles 6-4 on Wednesday night to square the World Series at one game apiece.
Blake Snell struck out nine in 4 2/3 innings for the Rays and didn’t allow a hit until Chris Taylor’s two-run homer trimmed it to 5-2 in the fifth. Los Angeles threatened to complete a big comeback in the eighth, but Tampa Bay’s relievers held firm.
Lowe and Joey Wendle each drove in three runs for the Rays.
Nick Anderson got four outs for the win. Diego Castillo earned the save when he struck out Taylor, the only batter he faced.
Lowe hit an opposite-field solo homer to left-center in the first off Tony Gonsolin, putting the American League champion Rays ahead for the first time at this neutral-site World Series with their 27th home run of the postseason, matching a major league record. The second baseman was hitting .107 this postseason, and in an even worse 4-for-48 slide (.083) the past13 games since the start of the AL Division Series.
By the time he went deep again in the fifth, his second opposite-field shot of the game and the entire season – with a runner on against Dustin May, already the fourth Dodgers pitcher – it was 5-0.
And more was not merrier for Dodgers pitchers.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts went with an opener against the team that invented the concept, sending Tony Gonsolin to start Game 2 of the World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays as the first of seven pitchers – one shy of the record for a nine-inning Series game.
By the end of the Dodgers’ defeat, it appeared the Dodgers are down to a twoman rotation of Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw.
Seems like a throwback to the Boston Braves of Spahn and Sain and pray for rain, as Gerald V. Hern of the Boston Post memorialized the pitching tandem of Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain in 1948.
Of the 125 innings pitched by the Dodgers in the postseason, Buehler is 1-0 with a 1.89 ERA in 19 innings and Kershaw is 3-1with a 2.88 ERA in 25 innings, a combined a 2.45 ERA . The rest of the staff is 6-3 with a 4.11 ERA.
Gonsolin lasted just four outs, leaving with a 1-0 deficit after allowing a home run to his second batter, Brandon Lowe. Dylan Floro (four outs) and Victor Gonzalez (three outs) followed with scoreless ball, but the Rays built a 5-0 lead off Dustin May, who gave up Joey Wendle’s two-run double in the fourth and Lowe’s two-run homer in the fifth. Joe Kelly allowed Wendle’s sacrifice fly in the sixth.
Alex Wood (six outs) and Jake McGee (three) followed with shutout relief, but the damage was too much to overcome.
Know for famous starting pitchers like Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Fernando Valenzuela and Orel Hershiser, the Dodgers would not seem like a team primed to adapt to the opener concept pioneered by manager Kevin Cash and Rays in 2018.
Roberts gambled to keep Buehler and Kershaw fresh, just like he did in Game 7 of the NL Championship Series against Atlanta when he held off using Kershaw and started May as an opener, who then combined with Gonsolin, Blake Treinen, Brusdar Graterol and Julio Urías for a three-hitter in a 4-3 win.
Buehler is scheduled to start Game 3 on Friday night on five days’ rest.