#Dodgers now know why Rays are baseball’s cockroaches

ARLINGTON, Texas — These Rays are baseball’s cockroaches. Just when you think you’ve exterminated them, they pop up again.

And for crying out loud, you can’t offer them any assistance in their pest-y plans.

By popping up Saturday night, baseball’s little engine that could propped up this World Series. Suddenly, we’ve got a bona fide Fall Classic here at Globe Life Field.

An absolutely insane final play, featuring a comedy of Dodgers errors, propelled the Rays to a legendary, walk-off 8-7 victory in World Series Game 4, knotting things up at 2-2 and therefore ensuring we’ll hang around for at least a Game 6. The pressure now turns toward the favored Dodgers, who will send their icon and future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw, his October inconsistency part of his narrative, to the mound for Sunday night’s Game 5.

“They were the best team all year in the American League. Those guys fight. They play the game the right way,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’ve got to give credit to those guys. We’ve got to regroup and be ready for them [Sunday].”

The Rays fought like crazy in a ballgame that started off as another display of Dodgers money well spent. The Tampa Bay bunch erased three deficits, the last one in the bottom of the ninth against Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen, who has experienced more than his share of October turbulence over the years. Consequently, they now have erased a pair of deficits in games as well.

The Yankees couldn’t shake the Rays in 2020 no matter what they tried. They lost the regular-season series by a one-sided 8-2 count, the biggest reason why the Rays captured the AL East. Then the Yankees fell short to the Rays in a five-game AL Division Series in five games. However, of the 11 losses the Yankees recorded to the Rays this year, none could match what transpired on this night.

With Rays on first and second and two outs, down by one, Jansen got two strikes on the little-used Brett Phillips, who was at the plate only because his manager Kevin Cash had essentially run out of maneuvers after a busy night. Phillips sent a soft single into right-center field that easily scored tying run Kevin Kiermaier from second base. Then, however, Dodgers center fielder Chris Taylor couldn’t pick up the ball. Absolute chaos ensued.

The Rays sent their playoff stud Randy Arozarena, who had drawn a walk, home — only to see Arozarena fall down between third base and the plate, a sitting duck, extra innings ready to go. Except that Dodgers first baseman Max Muncy, having received the relay from the outfield, pivoted and fired home, where catcher Will Smith somehow let the ball get behind him. Which, as Jansen didn’t back up home plate, gave Arozarena the time he needed to come home with the game-winner.

“That’s uncharacteristic for us,” Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said.

Roberts, who has taken more than his share of flack for October tactics during his five years at the Dodgers’ helm, said he erred by bringing reliever Pedro Baez back in the game for the seventh inning after telling him he was done upon completing the sixth. Baez wound up surrendering a three-run homer in the sixth to Brandon Lowe that put the Rays ahead and then, after the Dodgers re-grabbed the lead in the top of the seventh (which prompted Roberts’ change of mind), served up a game-tying blast to Kiermaier.

“I take blame for having him go back out,” Roberts said.

“We know we’re good,” Jansen said, “and we know we’re going to come and win that game [Sunday].”

Easier said than done. This is the Dodgers’ 14th postseason since last winning it all in 1988. To be victimized by these Rays, especially after this game, would represent a different sort of pain. They need two more wins to avoid that. To finally off these cockroaches.