Brewers Win Game 2 on Disputed Check Swing as Diaz Strikes Out With Tying Run at Third

TL;DR: The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-4 in World Series Game 2 on Saturday night at American Family Field, taking a 2-0 series lead. The game ended on a disputed check-swing strikeout: with the tying run at third and two outs in the ninth, first base umpire James Hoye ruled that Yandy Diaz went around on a 3-2 pitch from Aaron Ashby, after home plate umpire Jim Wolf initially did not think Diaz had swung. Diaz disagreed with the call after the game but accepted it, saying the umpire said it was a swing and it is what it is. Update, October 25: the ending has already become a rule-change argument, with Baseball America’s JJ Cooper noting that under the ABS check-swing rules used in parts of the minor leagues, Diaz’s swing would not have been a swing, and USA Today calling an automated check-swing system a foregone conclusion.

A World Series game should not end on a question nobody in the ballpark can answer with certainty. Game 2 did. The Brewers had come back from four runs down, the Rays had the tying run at third, and the last pitch produced two different answers from two umpires. The one that counted came from first base.

What happened on the final pitch?

The ninth inning set the scene before Diaz ever stepped in. Jonny DeLuca doubled to open the inning off Aaron Ashby, who had already recorded the final two outs of the eighth. Victor Mesa Jr. struck out, and DeLuca advanced to third on a groundout. That left Diaz, the Rays’ designated hitter, as the last obstacle between Milwaukee and a 2-0 series lead.

On a 3-2 pitch, Diaz checked his swing. Wolf, behind the plate, initially did not think Diaz had gone around, USA Today reports. Brewers catcher William Contreras appealed to first, and Hoye ruled that Diaz had swung. Strike three, game over, Brewers 5-4. Diaz said afterward that in the moment he disagreed, but that the umpire said it was a swing and it is what it is. The rulebook offers no rescue for either side here, because it has no rigid, black-and-white definition of a check swing, USA Today notes. Two umpires watched the same half-swing and saw two different things, and the appeal system exists precisely so the second view can overrule the first.

How did Milwaukee come back from 4-0?

The comeback took six innings and no single big blow. Tampa Bay scored four in the first, helped by a Cooper Pratt error: Pratt’s errant throw from shortstop let Diaz reach second, Chandler Simpson singled him home, Simpson stole second and scored on Junior Caminero’s single, and Liam Hicks followed with his first postseason homer, Reuters reports. Milwaukee answered with two in the bottom of the first, including RBI singles by Contreras and Garrett Mitchell, then pulled within 4-3 in the fourth when Pratt walked, advanced on a Sal Frelick single and scored on a Jonathan Aranda error.

Frelick tied it in the sixth with a leadoff homer, a 408-foot drive to center for his first career postseason homer, after four homers in 339 at-bats in the regular season. The winner came in the seventh, when Brice Turang doubled off Tyler Wells to open the inning, advanced on a flyout, and Pratt greeted Kevin Kelly with an RBI single to right. Pratt began the game by giving Tampa Bay its lead and ended it by taking the lead back, which is the kind of arc that usually needs a full series to develop. He did it in nine innings.

What did Milwaukee’s bullpen do after Henderson?

It erased the starter’s short night completely. Logan Henderson lasted three innings and allowed four runs, three earned, on three hits. Then JoJo Romero, Dustin May and DL Hall each threw a scoreless inning, Abner Uribe got four outs for the win, and Ashby finished for his third save, Reuters reports. Ashby has not allowed a run in 15 and two-thirds innings across eight postseason appearances, and the Rays did not score after the first inning.

The bullpen’s night also included two plays that could have gone the other way. Jackson Chourio was thrown out at home in the eighth trying to score from third on an infield bouncer, on a close play upheld on review. In the sixth, Chourio’s throw from left field nailed Hicks trying to score from second to end the inning, also upheld after a review. Milwaukee’s comeback survived its own mistakes because the relievers gave Tampa Bay nothing to build on.

Why does the tying run at third keep showing up?

Because both games have ended the same way for Tampa Bay: one run short, with a runner in scoring position. Reuters notes the Rays stranded the tying run at third in the ninth for the second consecutive game. Game 1 turned on baserunning, when Victor Mesa Jr. apologized for a steal of third that ended a rally and the Rays refused to ease up on the bases. Game 2 turned on an appeal to first base. The details changed completely and the result did not change at all, which is why the series now feels less like two separate games and more like one long Milwaukee escape act.

The pattern goes back further than this series. Milwaukee also overcame a 4-0 deficit in the NLCS, rallying for a 6-4 win over the Dodgers in Game 4 to complete the sweep, Reuters reports. And the Brewers’ Game 1 win came with its own final-inning argument, when William Contreras won two ABS challenges and threw out two runners in a 3-2 victory. Contreras has now decided both games from behind the plate, once with challenges and once with an appeal.

What does the 2-0 lead actually mean?

It means Tampa Bay needs four wins in five games, starting Monday at Tropicana Field, and no team has come back from a 2-0 World Series deficit since the 1996 New York Yankees. USA Today reports Freddy Peralta, who spent eight seasons with Milwaukee, will start Game 3 for Tampa Bay, while left-hander Robert Gasser starts for the Brewers. The Rays’ path back runs through their own ballpark and their own style, the same aggressive baserunning that cost them in Game 1 and the same lineup that scored four in the first inning of Game 2 and then went quiet.

The check swing will follow the series to Florida whether anyone wants it to or not. It is the rare ending that gives both fan bases a fair grievance: Rays fans saw a half-swing that the plate umpire did not call, Brewers fans saw a correct appeal on a pitch Diaz could not hold up. Baseball has no replay for a check swing and no definition sharp enough to settle one. The next time a World Series game ends this way, the argument will sound exactly the same, because the rule that produced it has not changed. For now, the argument belongs to Milwaukee, along with a 2-0 lead.

What happens next?

Game 3 on Monday night in St. Petersburg, with Peralta against Gasser. The Rays need a win to keep the series from becoming a countdown, and the Brewers need two more wins for the first World Series title in franchise history. If Game 3 ends with another tying run stranded or another appeal to first base, nobody in either clubhouse will be surprised. That is what this series has become after two games: close, strange, and decided by the smallest possible margins. The overturned fan-interference homer that ended a Yankees-Rays game earlier this postseason showed Tampa Bay already knows how a series can turn on one call, and the two throwing errors that gifted the Dodgers runs in NLCS Game 2 showed Milwaukee knows how quickly a game can tilt on mistakes. Game 2 tilted on a swing that may or may not have happened, and the tilt is now 2-0.

Update, October 25: the check swing becomes a rule-change argument

Sunday brought the next stage of the argument, and it is no longer about whether Diaz swung. Baseball America’s JJ Cooper pointed out on Saturday night that under the ABS check-swing rules used in parts of the minor leagues, Diaz’s swing would not have been a swing, Yardbarker reports. Had that system been in place, Diaz would have walked, the bases would have been loaded with two outs in a one-run game, and Jonathan Aranda would have stepped in as the tying run at third waited. USA Today went further, calling an automated check-swing replay system a foregone conclusion after a World Series game ended this way, while noting that the call itself was not as questionable as some famous endings, including Wilmer Flores’ NLDS-ending strikeout against Max Scherzer.

The managers’ verdicts, meanwhile, undercut the idea of a robbery. Cash thought Diaz swung, USA Today reports, and Diaz himself generally agreed, even as he said in the moment that he disagreed and that it is what it is. The same USA Today verdict sheet had harder words for Cash’s bullpen handling, for the Rays’ ticket market back home, where second-level seats were still available at $675 while Milwaukee’s Game 1 get-in price hit $2,300, and praise for Ashby, who is one out short of Andrew Miller’s record 16-inning scoreless streak to open a postseason. None of that changes the result, and none of it settles the swing. What it does is move the debate from one umpire’s judgment to the system that left the biggest game of the year to that judgment, which is exactly the debate the minor leagues have already started answering.

Game 1, for its part, had its own ending overturned a night earlier: the Brewers had to win Game 1 twice after replay wiped out the final double play, when Cooper Pratt’s foot came off second base too early and Trevor Megill had to close the game a second time.