ST. PETERSBURG -- Entering the 12th inning of World Series Game 4, Brewers rookie Shane Drohan had pitched precisely once in the last month, and that appearance was long since in his rearview. As such, Drohan was not an obvious choice to close out a championship. He was simply the last man standing.
By the time Drohan approached the Tropicana Field mound, over an hour had passed since manager Pat Murphy had deployed his regular closer, Trevor Megill. Relief ace Aaron Ashby similarly wasn’t an option, because he had followed Megill with 2 1/3 scoreless innings and departed amidst a velocity drop. Abner Uribe, JoJo Romero and DL Hall were long since spent. Antonio Senzatela had just walked off the mound, similarly gassed, and that other option -- the tall fella with the 103 mph fastball -- well, Murphy wasn’t going there.
That left an extremely well-rested Drohan to try to silence the Rays for good.
He could not.
Instead, Drohan didn’t record an out in the 12th inning of a 4-3 loss to the Rays, entering with a man on first and allowing four consecutive singles. The second of those, from Jonny DeLuca, drove home the tying run. The fourth of them, from Ben Williamson, was a walk-off.
“Obviously it’s tough, but they called my name for a reason,” Drohan said. “And I failed.”
Though the final line on Drohan -- four hits, one run, zero outs -- wasn’t pretty, he and his Brewers teammates tried to focus on the things he had done well. The first batter that Drohan faced, Liam Hicks, hit a routine double-play ball to shortstop. The only problem was that the Brewers were shifted, allowing the ball to squirt easily into left-center field for a hit.
The next batter, DeLuca, also hit the ball on the ground, just out of Drohan’s reach. Chandler Simpson followed with a line-drive single before Williamson lashed a high chopper over the first baseman’s head. The launch angle of that hit was -20 degrees.
“He got the ball on the ground for the most part,” Ashby said. “I think that to be thrown in the fire like that is going to be good for him. That’s a very tough situation for him to come into. I know it seems like he didn’t succeed right now, but he executed pitches.”
Added Ashby: “We’re still going to need that guy.”
Drohan’s presence in Game 4 was hardly Murphy’s Plan A. Had the Brewers manager known the game would last so long, he admitted afterward, he would have used Megill for more than one out. Murphy might have likewise stretched Ashby even longer than 2 1/3 innings and 31 pitches if not for a slight velocity drop that concerned him.
“He was disappointed he was coming out,” Murphy said. “But I said, ‘We've got to be mindful of your health, and we've got to be mindful of winning the whole thing. If you're going to win the whole thing, you have to understand that we can’t drain you today or risk injury today.’ He’s thrown a lot.”
That will be the Brewers’ bullpen backdrop heading into Game 5, with Jacob Misiorowski’s performance dictating the rest. After Misiorowski is anyone’s guess. Will Ashby be available the night after throwing 31 pitches and experiencing a velocity drop? Might Uribe pitch after recording six outs of his own? How aggressive will Murphy play things in general, knowing a trip back to Milwaukee could give the Rays significant hope?
“Yeah, it’s all hands on deck,” Murphy said. “You can write it up and hope that they perform like the back of their baseball card, but that doesn’t always happen. You go with what you believe is the deal. I trust our guys. I trust them. They put themselves in a position to win.”
As for Drohan, Ashby understands as well as anyone how his teammate is feeling. In his first six career playoff games, Ashby allowed eight runs, blowing a save and walking more batters than he struck out over that stretch. He has since recovered to set a reliever record for consecutive scoreless innings in a single postseason.
Drohan, too, can learn and grow from his first World Series experience.
“Definitely hard,” the rookie said. “I’m human. I knew what I was walking into. I just didn’t get the job done.”