MILWAUKEE — Coming off a frustrating loss in Game 1 of the World Series, the Tampa Bay Rays still looked to be in solid position entering Game 2 on Saturday, with ace Drew Rasmussen on the mound and their top bullpen arms fully rested relative to Milwaukee’s best relievers, who had to cover four innings on Friday. 

This pitching advantage on paper was amplified further when the Rays ambushed Brewers rookie Logan Henderson in the top of the first inning Saturday. No team allowed fewer first-inning runs in the regular season than Milwaukee, scored upon just 60 times across 162 opening frames. But when Liam Hicks clobbered a poorly located cutter from Henderson 411 feet to the second deck in right field, it was 4-0 Tampa Bay before Rasmussen had even taken the mound.

You couldn’t draw up a better start for the team looking to even the series. But against these Milwaukee Brewers, such a start means only so much. And by the end of the night, that four-spot in the first lingered on the scoreboard as a wholly unsatisfying opening act, one followed by eight zeroes across the remaining frames. Along the way, a deluge of uncharacteristic miscues opened the door for a Brewers team always eager to stroll on through. The result? Yet another Milwaukee comeback and a 5-4 final that sends the series to St. Petersburg with the Rays down 2-0.

"They grind every [at-bat], every pitch. They’ve got a lot of fight, and they scrap away all nine innings,” left fielder Chandler Simpson said afterward.

The Brewers’ counterpunch came quickly after Hicks’ homer, with Rasmussen needing 29 pitches to navigate a first inning that featured four hits, including RBI singles from William Contreras and Garrett Mitchell that trimmed Tampa Bay’s lead to 4-2. The inning also included a lineout from Brice Turang that jumped off the bat at 108.5 mph — the third-hardest hit ball Rasmussen has allowed this postseason. The six runs combined were the most in the first inning of a World Series game since 1993, suggesting that a slugfest might be in store. Instead, offense was much harder to come by from there.

Rasmussen responded with a 1-2-3 second, but even that frame brought some stress. Jackson Chourio fouled off six pitches before grounding out to end the inning on the 11th offering, pushing Rasmussen’s pitch count to 49. The right-hander kept the heart of Milwaukee’s order quiet in the third, but it took another 18 pitches.

“Kudos to them,” Rasmussen said afterward. “They put together really good at-bats, and they don't stop competing, regardless of what the circumstances are.”

In the fourth, the bottom of the Brewers’ lineup mounted more pressure as Rasmussen’s command began to wane. Rookie Cooper Pratt drew a one-out walk after falling down 0-2. Sal Frelick followed with a sharp single that left the bat at 105.4 mph — his hardest-hit ball since June 7 and harbinger of an even bigger swing to come.

Then the wheels really started to fall off for Tampa Bay. David Hamilton tapped a ball down the right-field line that trickled under the glove and through the legs of first baseman Jonathan Aranda, allowing a third Milwaukee run to score. Had Aranda fielded it cleanly, he might have had time to throw Pratt out at home. Instead, it represented just the Rays’ second error of the postseason and first since ALDS Game 3 against the Yankees. 

“I felt like I was falling behind far too often to expect good results,” Rasmussen said later. “And then from there, they found themselves in some hitters' counts and were able to find holes.”

Rasmussen got one more out before a walk to Jake Bauers ended his night, as manager Kevin Cash called on lefty Cam Booser to take on Christian Yelich with the bases loaded. With just 3 ⅔ innings completed, Game 2 marked Rasmussen’s shortest outing since a July 9 clunker in which he allowed six runs and recorded just seven outs against the Yankees. He went at least five innings in each of his final 11 regular-season starts; the Rays won all 11 of those contests.

Booser retired Yelich to keep Tampa Bay’s lead intact. But Rasmussen’s early exit meant the Rays had to find 15 more outs from a bullpen that has looked increasingly shaky as the postseason has progressed.

The pressure to build a larger lead manifested in the form of some recklessly aggressive baserunning in the top of the sixth. With two outs and Hicks on second base, Victor Mesa Jr. poked a single past the shortstop Pratt. Chourio, playing pretty shallow, scooped up the ball in left field before Hicks had even touched third, but third-base coach Brady Williams waved Hicks home anyway. Chourio’s throw to catcher Contreras beat Hicks by several steps. The inning was over, and the Brewers dugout enjoyed another jolt of momentum.

The sellout crowd of 43,245 at American Family Field could feel Milwaukee’s latest comeback brewing as Ian Seymour took the mound for the bottom of the sixth. And after nine pitches to Frelick, the game was tied. Seymour attacked with alternating four-seam fastballs and sinkers until Frelick smashed a 92.9-mph four-seamer over the center-field wall for a stadium-shaking blast that made it 4-4. The Brewers nearly snagged the lead a few batters later, when a miscommunication between Simpson and shortstop Taylor Walls messed up Simpson’s catch attempt on what should’ve been a harmless Yelich flyout.

“Just miscues that happened that don't usually happen,” Simpson said afterward. 

Reliever Tyler Wells entered and escaped the frame with the game still tied, but when the broadcast returned from commercial, it showed Rays star Junior Caminero unleashing some verbal discontent in the dugout.

“Just trying to help the team, to get our heads up … just trying to create some energy,” Caminero said through interpreter Kevin Vera when asked postgame about that moment. But he confirmed it was more than just a standard pep talk — there was a clear intended message.

“We had to get outs,” he added. “In that moment, we weren’t doing our job. And against Milwaukee, if you give up outs, they’re gonna use that against you.”

Not every misplay has come back to bite Tampa in the first two games of the series. But given how the Brewers’ bullpen has performed this October — even when Henderson exited after just three innings, manager Pat Murphy had a wealth of quality options to turn to — squandering run-scoring opportunities or gifting Milwaukee’s bats additional chances is asking for trouble. Eventually, the Brewers tend to find the go-ahead run they are searching for. In Game 2, it came courtesy of Pratt, who delivered an RBI single in the bottom of the seventh to make it 5-4. 

Like in Game 1, the Rays produced one more scoring chance in the final frame of Game 2, when Jonny DeLuca led off with a double against Aaron Ashby. But Ashby made sure DeLuca finished the game stranded on the basepaths, as he retired the next three batters to finalize the Brewers’ victory.

The series now shifts to Tropicana Field, where the Rays will once again have an advantageous pitching scenario, with a confident and in-form veteran, Freddy Peralta, taking the ball for Game 3 against another Milwaukee rookie, lefty Robert Gasser. But unless the Rays improve in all facets of the game against a Brewers club firing on all cylinders, it might not matter how the matchup looks on paper. 

“We just got to clean it up,” DeLuca said postgame. “I think the game's speeding up on us right now, and we just got to be able to slow it down and do jobs and just clean everything up in all phases of the game.”

"We're gonna have to dig deep, and we're gonna have to compete from here on out,” Rasmussen said. “I think we understand what's in front of us and what it's going to take.”

Perhaps the best thing the Rays can have right now is a short memory.

"I already forgot about these last two days,” Caminero said. “The series now, in my mind, starts on Monday.”