World Series 2026: With pinch-hit, 12th-inning walk-off, Ben Williamson meets the moment in Game 4 and extends the Rays' season at least one more day

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — It sure wasn't pretty. But the Tampa Bay Rays won't complain.

Ben Williamson delivered the 64th walk-off in World Series history on Tuesday — or, at 12:28 a.m. Wednesday, to be exact — to help the Rays stave off elimination and topple the mighty Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 in a Game 4 that stretched 12 innings over 4 hours, 20 minutes.

For the first 11 innings of this tightly contested ballgame, Williamson sat on the bench and watched as the Brewers tiptoed toward the finish line of the first championship in franchise history. Rookie Cooper Pratt's go-ahead solo homer in the top of the 12th sent the gigantic contingent of Milwaukee supporters at Tropicana Field into ecstasy, within three outs of baseball nirvana.

But when third baseman Joey Ortiz's throwing error enabled Junior Caminero to reach base leading off the bottom of the inning, the window was cracked open for Williamson's specific services to be eventually called upon. And after three singles against lefty Shane Drohan, Williamson represented the final maneuver for manager Kevin Cash to make.

"Cash just kind of turned around and said, 'Get ready to hit,'" Williamson recalled afterward. "Jokingly, in my head, I was thinking, 'Yeah, I've been ready to hit since the fourth or fifth inning."

The 25-year-old, glove-first infielder with zero knocks in this World Series pinch-hit for Victor Mesa Jr. with a simple goal in mind: Put the ball in play. With the bases loaded, nobody out and the game already tied 3-3, Williamson just needed to avoid striking out to have an excellent chance at a favorable outcome.

As such, Cash's swap made sense, considering Mesa is one of the rare Rays with a tendency to whiff, while Williamson embodies the club's greatest strength: making contact. Tampa Bay had the highest contact rate and the lowest strikeout rate in MLB in the regular season. Those skills were on display leading up to Williamson's game-winner, as Liam Hicks, Jonny DeLuca and Chandler Simpson all collected their singles with two strikes.

Hicks punched a 2-2 fastball into left field that moved Caminero to third before Cedric Mullins pinch-ran for him after the third baseman seemed to pull something rounding second (Caminero is expected to be in the lineup for Wednesday's Game 5). DeLuca then smacked a 1-2 cutter into center field to tie the game. With runners on first and second and nobody out, Simpson arrived at the plate in an obvious bunt scenario but missed an attempt and fell into a 2-2 count. Still, the Rays weren't concerned.

"Chan getting down to two strikes, missing the bunts … but we know he's a guy that's going to put the ball in play," Hicks said afterward. "I don't think there's any worry when that happens … like, 'We're out of it. He's going to strike out.' Like, that's not going through anyone's mind. Everyone knows how good he is at putting the bat on the ball."

Sure enough, Simpson smoked a high fastball from Drohan back up the middle for his third hit of the game, which loaded the bases before Cash pressed his final bench button.

But Williamson took a different tact than his teammates. Rather than embarking on a lengthy plate appearance that could bring a punchout into play, he wasted no time. He swung at Drohan's first-pitch fastball.

"You have to be ready to go," shortstop Taylor Walls said afterward. "You never know when your name's going to be called. Those guys stay ready on the bench. That was probably more of a grind for them trying to run up and down the tunnel and taking 30 swings an inning than it was for us playing it. It's tough to stay ready in those spots, and he was ready. He was aggressive. He didn't waste any time there.

"Sometimes the first one's the best one you get, and he got it done."

The winning batted ball from Williamson — blasted into the ground at a minus-20-degree launch angle but with such force that it leapfrogged first baseman Jake Bauers and landed in the right-field grass — was not the genre of glorious game-ender we've seen in recent Fall Classics.

This was not a walk-off homer to end an 18-inning marathon the way Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy have somehow both accomplished, nor was it Freeman's walk-off grand slam to beat the Yankees. This was not Adolis Garcia adding to his epic October heater with a walk-off blast to push Texas toward its first championship. This was not Alex Bregman's single off Kenley Jansen to end an absolute circus of a Game 5 that finished 13-12. Heck, this wasn't even as objectively entertaining as the last time the Rays experienced this specific kind of joy, when Brett Phillips unleashed a special kind of chaos with his walk-off single to win World Series Game 4 in 2020.

This was a far less glamorous ball in play, a high chopper that happened to come in the most ideal of circumstances. But it was all it needed to be. Besides, if the Rays are to become only the second team to rally from down 3-0 in a best-of-seven postseason series, they had to start somewhere.

"There's 26 guys that at some point or another throughout the year have come through in a big spot and helped us win a game, and tonight was no different," said reliever Bryan Baker, whose scoreless eighth and ninth innings helped the Rays hang on long enough to win it in extras.

"Getting to see someone like Benny get a hit to finish off the game and pull out a win for us in the World Series is pretty special to see."

Indeed, the Rays rallied to see another day. Now Tampa Bay must turn the page quickly after the late-night triumph and prepare for another battle Wednesday, looking to extend its season even further.

Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski awaits on the mound in Game 5, while the Rays' own pitching plans, according to Cash, are still unsettled. But whatever combination of hitters and pitchers take the field for the next elimination game, the American League champs aren't going to go down easy.

"We love the challenge," DeLuca said postgame. "We're ready for it, and we love the spot we're in. To get this win tonight and have the momentum on our sides right now — we're going to keep it going into tomorrow."

"We're a team that's capable of winning four," Walls said. "At the end of the day, we think we can win the whole thing. So whether it starts with us down 0-3 and winning four in a row or whether it started with us winning the first one or second one … we have full confidence that we can do it."