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Milwaukee Brewers win game two of the World Series 5 to four uh over the Tampa Bay Rays to take a two- lead in the best of seven World Series. Man, what a game this was. There's so many great pivot points in this game. And I want to start at the end with Aaron Ashby with the way that he finished up the choice of course that Pat Murphy made decided to keep him in the game rather than go with Trevor Miguel. What was your read on that? I mean, look, he we saw it uh when they ended up, you know, clinching the National League pennant. He ended up with McIll up and ready in a game and let Ashby go back out there for a third inning. I just think that it's Look, Ashby's been your best reliever. It's
really clear. It's no disrespect to McGill. Um, I think that, you know, we've had times in the history of the game where managers felt a little weird about he's my closer, it's his job, and they would kind of Yeah. auto go to I mean, you're talking about with McIll, you know, a guy north of what, 30 saves. So, I, you know, he's been their guy and it's again, no disrespect to him, but Ashby, he just neutralizes the lefties so well and his stuff is filthy. But how much has the game evolved where we see yes the analytics play such an important role but when you get into the postseason how much teams have learned to understand to read the room to understand what your pitcher doing and not just go to maybe what might be pre-prescribed as how
you're going to finish off a game. I love what the Brewers have done of understanding their pitchers when they're dealing. Let's keep them in and understand how to do that. What did you guys think of the decisions in the ninth inning, whether it was to keep him in the game? Uh, as you were managing along during that ninth inning, what did you think of what Pat Murphy did and what did you think of what Kevin Cash did? I was surprised that they didn't bunt with Mesa or try. But I'd also say he's in such a tough spot at the bottom part of the order because I mean, let's be honest, Williamson ended up putting it in play. But ultimately, you're asking
Mesa, who is a better hitter, albeit left on left, but he you're asking Mesa to give up an out, and then there's no guarantee Williamson's even going to put it in play. They don't have enough at the bottom of their order. So, I think ultimately he probably should have bunted um because then you have so many different ways that you could have scored as long as he could have gotten it down. But there's a lot of, you know, outcomes and it's not so easy bunning and 100 mph sinker. Yeah, we talked after game one how it felt right away like the difference between the bullpens could be the difference in this World Series. The Brewers bullpen tonight. Six scoreless innings. Aaron Ashby now up to 15 and
two/3 scoreless innings this postseason. Just crazy. I related this story which I just loved about uh Ashby. I asked DL Hall, his teammates, you know, are you the guy who plays catching? He goes, "I'm not catching that guy." And he said, "No one is because his stuff is so crazy and because the intensity and man, what a performance." How about the Brewers again digging out from a 40 deficit with at bat after at bat. Can we just talk about their resiliency and how much fun it is to watch a team be so calm and so understanding? I mean, let's be real. The first home run that was hit in this entire World Series comes off the bat of Liam Hicks in the
first inning kind of felt like the game was going to be over. four runs in that first inning. Brewers are relaxed. Not only do they respond right away against Drew Rasmmanson, against the ace of the Tampa Bay Rays, but they just continue to grind out at bats, hit foul balls, and make theirers have to work and earn every single thing. This is what the Brewers have done all season. I get it. But I've never been more impressed with the championship series and this game with their resiliency. They thrive certainly in adverse conditions, but you know, don't kid yourself. This is a team that was excellent at avoiding making outs. They were tops in the majors in batting average, tops in on base. They
scored the second most runs in baseball. So, you know, I think that we have this idea that they're this little engine that could, but even, you know, when they were facing the Dodgers and the LCS for as much as everybody wanted to compare and contrast the lineups, and I can understand sitting there going personnel by personnel, but they scored more runs than the Dodgers scored this year over 162 games. So, it's at least closer than you think it is. This is a really good offense. They can score in a multitude of ways. I was also impressed with Logan Henderson after giving up those four runs how he dialed in the fastball command. I mean because then he was elevating. He was really
hitting those spots and that's hard to do. You give up the home run, you give up some big hits. It feels like, okay, my heels are back and I need to get some more length, a little bit more length. And he did that the next three innings what he was able to do to hand the ball off to the bullpen. So, not just the bullpen for the Brewers, but I was really impressed with Henderson after that first inning dialing in that fast ball and being able to get Tampa Bay to sit down. But I liked that he didn't push his luck with it that he went to Romero when he did and ultimately started it. It got to be a close game and it was like, "Okay, Logan, thank you for your time." But he didn't try to squeeze five out of them
or something along those lines. And ultimately, this ridiculous bullpen was ridiculous again. Four to three, bottom of the sixth inning. South Freelick hits a bomb towards center field. You know him well. Yeah, I mean he is loved in that clubhouse. He's a great personality. He is self-deprecating and super confident in terms of his ability. But I mean, I think you if you saw the dugout reaction shots, they were flying out of the so excited. Look, obviously it's a tying homer, but you can tell when certain guys hit home runs and everybody in the dugout is excited for the guy that hit the homer. And I mean, S feels it. You interviewed him and when you asked him
about the trip around the bases, he said, "I blacked out." But then the other part of it that I loved is he said, "I was just thinking about getting back to the dugout to see my boys." Yeah. He flew around the bases. And I'll tell you what, he might have blacked out, but between first and second base when he realized cuz he told you in that postgame interview, I didn't know if it was going out. So, he was wheeling. He gets around first, realizes it's out, and he I mean, it looked like a 12year-old that just hit his first home run, and he's like, "Look at me. Look what I did." He's jumping around the bases. Pure joy. And honestly, how can
you not love that play, that moment for anyone in baseball? Initially, when I asked the question, I said, "And that home run to right?" And like it was in my brain like, "Oh my god, what an idiot." I'm looking in his eyes. I know how competitive he is. And I thought like, "You just shorted the guy. He just hit a bomb to just straight away center field." So I tried to correct it as I went back in because I knew what a moment it was. It's going to live with him for the rest of his life. Well, that's funny because again, he has a great sense of humor about it when he scored the winning run in game one when they walked it off against the Padres's. He the first run was scored by Yelich and when he slid across Yelich
tried to wrap him in a bear hug and he shed Yelich and then raced out to Jackson Cheerio and in the postgame press conference Yelich said I tried to tackle S but he played high school football and he was able to elude my tackle and S went on to say that's right I was state player of the year for Gatorade Massachusetts state football player of the year in 17 and they like to give him a hard time about it. All right, we got about two minutes left. I got two more for you. Uh Cooper Pratt, I was so impressed. You get a rookie player and on the second strike of that plate appearance, he looked terrible. He was hacking like, "Oh my
god, he's got no chance. Ball in the dirt. He swings at it. Goes down to two strikes, Jess. And then he smokes the game-winning hit." And can we also talk about how he started this game with a big-time error? how he basically gave Tampa Bay those two runs to kind of start the game and you could tell it did affect him his first two at bats he looked like he was in between fast ball change up could not make that adjustment in that at bat he did and with two strikes to be able to shorten up I know we talk about the Brewers and this is what they've done throughout the season but to watch a young player make a massive error have not great at bats and make an adjustment in game that is massive for his age especially
all right for the Rays to get back into it. I mean, you got Freddy Peralta on the mound in game three in the trop. What are you looking for? Yeah, that's what I mean, that's what it starts with. And they've got to I mean, you got to get Baker into the game um at some point. And I think, you know, Freddy is not a guy normally that gives you a whole lot of length. So, you know, hopefully he for the Rays gives them a dominant type performance. And again, they're going to have to figure out some way to score some runs. We'll see what ends up happening as far as is there a chance at some point where Pat Murphy
has to keep going to these guys and do they get a little fried right now. There's no sign of it. We saw that and remember 2016 World Series with the Cleveland Indians at that time. Andrew Miller in particular, he was awesome and then at the end he was out of gas. And so that's a question. Yeah, I mean it's I give Sophia Manert credit. It was probably uh right before the start of this series. Actually, it was Yeah, it was at the end of the Dodgers series and she said that basically Aaron Ashby has turned into Andrew Miller for them.
Yeah. And that is what he's been. It's been amazing. But ultimately Andrew Miller was asked to do a lot. We'll see how many games this thing goes. But if the Rays can get a win, it just, you know, obviously a win because you need wins to take the series, but it also changes stuff in terms of manipulation of the bullpen, etc. I know we want to make this a series, but I'll tell you what, this was the game that Tampa Bay had to win. They they had their dude on the mound. They had a fourrun lead. This is a blow that's bigger than just a loss. This is something, yeah, you take back 0 O2 back to your home in Tampa, but it feels like this series is going to be a lot
tougher, so much more uphill. Feels like the Brewers won it in this game alone. Two great games in the first two games of World Series. You guys have done a great job. Thanks so much. Coverage for game three begins at 700 p.m. Eastern on Monday night on ESPN Radio.
