Down 0–2 and Finally Home: The Rays' Whole Season Rides on Freddy Peralta Tonight

ST. PETERSBURG

The Tampa Bay Rays have already lost this World Series twice by one run. A 3–2 in Game 1. A 5–4 in Game 2 that they led 4–0 in the first inning, with the tying run standing at third base in the ninth. Now the Series comes home to Tropicana Field tonight (8:00 PM ET, FOX) with Milwaukee up 2–0, and the math of history standing behind the Brewers like a wall.

Ten teams in the history of the World Series have come back from 0–2 to win it. The last one was the 1996 Yankees, 30 years ago. Everybody else who has stood where Tampa Bay is standing tonight went home with nothing. And if the Rays lose tonight, the hole becomes 0–3 — a place no World Series team has ever climbed out of.

Which is why this game sits on one man's right arm.

Freddy Peralta has been the best pitcher in this postseason: 2–0 with a 1.08 ERA and 12 strikeouts, the ALCS MVP after allowing one run in 12 innings against Cleveland. He is 7–0 with a 0.89 ERA over his last 10 outings, and in seven starts at Tropicana Field since joining Tampa Bay he has a 1.45 ERA in this building. Tonight he faces the other dugout — the Milwaukee Brewers, the franchise he spent his first eight major-league seasons with, in a World Series game his new team cannot afford to lose.

Milwaukee's answer is the other half of the best pitching matchup of this Series. Robert Gasser, a left-hander who began the season at Triple-A Nashville, has allowed one run in nine innings across two postseason starts — a 1.00 ERA, including five scoreless innings against the Dodgers in the NLCS. The Brewers expect four or five innings from him and then a parade from the bullpen that carried Game 2, when starter Logan Henderson lasted three innings and Milwaukee still won.

That is the wound Tampa Bay has to reopen. The Rays jumped Henderson for four first-inning runs on Saturday and spent the next eight innings watching the lead drain away — Cooper Pratt's seventh-inning RBI single put Milwaukee ahead for good, and the tying run died at third in the ninth. The offense that built the 4–0 lead is in this lineup. It has to finish this time.

The building deserves its own paragraph. This is the first World Series game at Tropicana Field since 2008 — the Rays' only other Fall Classic was played on the road in the 2020 bubble — and the franchise has never won a championship. Neither has Milwaukee. Somebody's drought ends this week; tonight decides whose is still alive with room to breathe. The Brewers, 103-game winners, play loose, two wins from a title with three chances to close at home if it comes back. The Rays, 98-game winners, play for their season in everything but the standings: win, and it's a Series again at 2–1 with Games 4 and 5 in this park. Lose, and it's a wake.

Tampa Bay's room for error is thinner than the lineup card suggests. Shane McClanahan is out for the postseason. Milwaukee's Brandon Woodruff is on the World Series roster but hasn't pitched in a game since July 4 — a weapon the Brewers have held in reserve while winning anyway.

So it comes down to the oldest shape a World Series game can take: the ace against the upstart, the home crowd against the history books, a team one loss from the edge throwing the best pitcher of October at the team that used to employ him. Peralta doesn't need to be perfect tonight. He just needs to be what he's been all month — because if he isn't, 30 years of history says nobody's coming to save the Rays.

How to watch: Game 3, Monday, Oct. 26, 8:00 PM ET / 5:00 PM PT, Tropicana Field, FOX (Joe Davis and John Smoltz on the call). Game 4 is Tuesday at the Trop; Game 5, if needed, Wednesday. Follow every pitch in the Game Center, and keep up with the whole Series in our MLB hub.

By the Numbers

• 10 — teams in World Series history that have rallied from 0–2 to win the Series. The last: the 1996 New York Yankees, 30 years ago.
• 1.08 — Freddy Peralta's ERA this postseason (2–0, 12 K), including one run allowed in 12 ALCS innings and ALCS MVP honors. 1.00 — Robert Gasser's postseason ERA (one run in nine innings over two starts).
• 4–0 — the lead Tampa Bay blew in Game 2, in the first inning, before losing 5–4 with the tying run at third in the ninth.
• 2008 — the last time Tropicana Field hosted a World Series game. The Rays' 2020 appearance was played at a neutral site.
• 0 — championships won by either franchise. Milwaukee (103–59) and Tampa Bay (98–64) are both chasing the first title in club history.
• 8 — seasons Peralta pitched for Milwaukee before joining Tampa Bay this year. Tonight he faces his former team with his new team's season on the line.