ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The first World Series game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg this fall turned into a long night for Tampa Bay. Milwaukee broke Game 3 open with eight runs in the fifth inning and beat the Rays 10-1 on Monday, leaving the Brewers one win from their first championship.
Every one of those fifth-inning runs came with two outs, and the Brewers strung together seven hits in a row, a postseason record. No team had ever put up eight runs in a single inning of a World Series game before. A replay review kept the inning alive: a force call at second base on a William Contreras grounder was overturned, which loaded the bases and chased starter Freddy Peralta.
Brice Turang followed with a two-run single against reliever Cam Booser, and Milwaukee kept piling on. Jackson Chourio finished with four hits, and Milwaukee totaled 16 against Peralta and five relievers.
On the mound, Brewers rookie lefty Robert Gasser held the Rays to a single hit over six shutout innings and faced the minimum 18 hitters, a feat no lefty had managed on baseball’s biggest stage since Sandy Koufax in 1965. Tampa Bay scored its lone run in the ninth.
A sold-out crowd of 40,388 filled the Trop, which Hurricane Milton damaged in October 2024. Peralta, the ALCS MVP, gave up five runs in 4 2/3 innings.
History is against the Rays now. Only the 2004 Red Sox have ever erased a 3-0 deficit in a seven-game playoff series, and Tampa Bay is still chasing its first title in 29 seasons. The Rays will try to stay alive when the teams meet again at the Trop on Tuesday night, needing four straight wins to take the series.
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