Game 6: Dodgers 3, Rays 1 Tuesday, Oct. 27
Blake Snell, Tampa Bay’s 2018 American League Cy Young Award winner, was putting on the greatest pitching performance of the postseason and carving spots in the World Series record book with the likes of
Sandy Koufax. He had given up his second single of the game with one out in the sixth, having struck out nine batters, and had thrown just 73 pitches.
The top of the order was coming up, and Cash did not want Snell to face the order for the third time in the game.
Cash walked to the mound and didn’t give Snell a chance to talk him out of it. Snell cursed and stormed off the mound.
The top of the Dodgers’ lineup – Mookie Betts, Corey Seager, Justin Turner and Max Muncy – had
been clueless against Snell. They were hitless in eight at-bats with seven strikeouts. It was the first time all season that Betts, Seager and Turner struck out twice in the same game, let alone against one pitcher.
Yet Cash stuck by the Rays’ playbook, called upon reliever Nick Anderson, who had struggled in the postseason, and immediately paid the price.
Betts greeted Anderson with a double into left field, putting runners on second and third. Anderson then threw a wild
pitch, scoring Austin Barnes. Seager hit a grounder to first baseman Ji-Man Choi, who quickly threw to home, but Betts, with a terrific jump, scored easily.
Betts homered off Pete Fairbanks in the eighth to provide the final winning margin.
Quotable: “The way I scouted them, the way I scouted myself, I knew what they were looking for, I knew how they were going to adjust that game plan. And I wanted to keep going. I wanted to go the whole game – that’s all I
wanted to do, was empty the tank.”