The Rays vs Brewers Game 4 result was a 4-3 Tampa Bay Rays win in 12 innings over the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night, 27 October 2026, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays vs Brewers Game 4 score stayed tied at 2-2 through nine innings, Milwaukee took a 3-2 lead in the top of the 12th on a Cooper Pratt home run, and Tampa Bay answered with two runs in the bottom of the 12th, capped by Ben Williamson's walk-off single. The result, trending per news coverage and with "Brewers" listed at more than 500,000 searches on Google Trends, kept Tampa Bay alive in the World Series, cut Milwaukee's series lead to 3-1, and forced a Game 5 on Wednesday night. It was the first win of the series for the Rays, and it arrived only after they had been three outs from a sweep.
Context made the comeback larger than one game. Milwaukee had won the first three games of the best-of-seven series: 3-2 in Game 1, 5-4 in Game 2, and 10-1 in Game 3 on Monday night. The Brewers vs Rays World Series Game 3 rout had left Milwaukee one win from the first World Series title in franchise history, and Tampa Bay facing the prospect of a four-game sweep on its home field. Game 4 did not follow that script. The Rays scored first, answered every Milwaukee lead, survived a ninth-inning threat from the Brewers, and then produced the defining inning of their postseason in the 12th. The Brewers still need only one more win, but they will now need to find it after a crushing late loss, while the Rays have a path back into a series that looked finished 24 hours earlier.
The early innings set up a close, low-scoring game rather than a repeat of Game 3. Tampa Bay starter Griffin Jax kept Milwaukee scoreless for three innings, allowing only three baserunners in that opening stretch, while Milwaukee starter Dustin May was replaced by JoJo Romero in the fourth inning after a leadoff single by Jackson Chourio. Both teams traded single runs in the middle innings, both defences made mistakes that mattered, and both bullpens held through the late innings until the game reached extra innings. In the postseason there is no automatic runner on second base to start extra innings, as there is in the regular season, so the 10th, 11th and 12th innings were played under traditional rules, with every runner earned. That detail mattered in a game decided by a bases-loaded rally built one hit at a time.
Rays vs Brewers Game 4: How the 4-3 Score Unfolded Inning by Inning
Tampa Bay took the lead in the bottom of the second inning. Chandler Simpson drove a double into the right-field corner to score Jonny DeLuca from first base, giving the Rays a 1-0 lead and their first run-scoring moment of control in the series after two days of chasing Milwaukee. Milwaukee answered in the top of the fourth. Cooper Pratt doubled home Sal Frelick with two outs to tie the game at 1-1, the first of several times Pratt would change the game with his bat. Tampa Bay went back in front in the bottom of the fourth when DeLuca hit a fielder's choice and a throwing error by David Hamilton allowed Junior Caminero to score, making it 2-1. Milwaukee tied it again in the top of the fifth, when Hamilton hit a home run off Jax with no outs to make it 2-2. From there, neither team scored again in regulation.
The scoreless stretch that followed was shaped by the bullpens and by two late chances that went nowhere. In the ninth inning, Milwaukee put Pratt on base with his third hit of the game, a single, and then saw him thrown out trying to steal second base to end the inning after a lengthy replay review overturned the original safe call on a challenge by Rays manager Kevin Cash. Chandler Simpson had also made a leaping catch in left field to deny Garrett Mitchell extra bases in that inning. Aaron Ashby then pitched a scoreless bottom of the ninth for Milwaukee, striking out Jonathan Aranda looking before Junior Caminero and Liam Hicks grounded out. USA Today's live coverage noted that Ashby had extended a run of 16 and two-thirds scoreless innings to start the postseason, described as the longest such streak to start a postseason by a reliever in Major League Baseball history. Tampa Bay threatened again in the 11th, when pinch-runner Jorge Mateo stole second base, but Aranda flied out to right-centre field with two outs to end the inning.
The 12th inning then produced three lead changes in feeling, if not in the official score, within a few minutes. Pratt led off the top of the 12th with a solo home run off Tampa Bay reliever Ian Seymour, giving Milwaukee a 3-2 lead and putting the Brewers three outs from the championship. Chourio followed with a double, his ninth hit through four games of the World Series, a total USA Today noted was the first such start to a World Series since Paul O'Neill in 2000, but Jake Bauers popped out to end the top half with Milwaukee still ahead by one. The bottom of the 12th began with Caminero reaching base on a throwing error by Milwaukee third baseman Joey Ortiz. Shane Drohan replaced Antonio Senzatela and recorded no outs. Liam Hicks singled, DeLuca singled home the tying run to make it 3-3, Simpson singled to load the bases with no outs, and Williamson, batting as a pinch-hitter, singled to win the game 4-3. The final line was Milwaukee 3 runs, 8 hits and 2 errors, and Tampa Bay 4 runs, 9 hits and 1 error.
Rays vs Brewers Game 4 Heroes: Cooper Pratt and Ben Williamson
Cooper Pratt, the 22-year-old Milwaukee shortstop, finished Game 4 with four hits in five at-bats: two singles, a double and the go-ahead home run in the 12th. His double in the fourth tied the game, his single in the ninth kept a late rally alive before he was caught stealing, and his home run off Seymour in the 12th was the hit that should have won the championship for Milwaukee. NBC Sports described Pratt as outstanding in the postseason, and his Game 4 performance showed why: he was involved in two of Milwaukee's three runs and reached base four times. The fact that his best game of the series ended in defeat underlined how fine the margin was. Milwaukee needed only three more outs after his home run, and Tampa Bay needed a rally that began with an error. Pratt's night will be remembered as a losing effort of the highest quality, and as a warning that Milwaukee's young core can produce runs even when the rest of the lineup is quiet.
Ben Williamson's contribution was the opposite in scale and just as decisive. The 25-year-old Tampa Bay pinch-hitter came to the plate with the bases loaded and no outs in the bottom of the 12th, took what NBC Sports described as a defensive swing, and hit a chopper over the first-base bag with the infield drawn in to drive home the winning run. It was his first-ever postseason run batted in, and it was the hit that kept Tampa Bay's season alive. Williamson was not expected to be in the Game 5 lineup, according to the same report, but that detail only adds to the story: a player called on for one at-bat delivered the most important hit of the Rays' season. His single followed a sequence in which every Tampa Bay batter in the inning reached base, and it turned a game Milwaukee had led into a win that changed the mood of the series. For the Rays, the hero was not a star carrying the team for nine innings, but a pinch-hitter asked to do one job in one moment.
The supporting performances also deserve a place in any account of the game. Simpson scored the first run with a double, reached base again to load the bases in the 12th, and made the leaping catch that saved extra bases in the ninth. DeLuca scored the first run, drove in the tying run in the 12th, and was involved in the run that put Tampa Bay ahead in the fourth. Caminero reached base on the error that started the winning rally and had been a constant presence on the bases. For Milwaukee, Chourio's nine hits through four games kept pressure on Tampa Bay pitching throughout the series, Frelick scored the tying run in the fourth, and Hamilton answered his fourth-inning error with a home run in the fifth. Bryan Baker also worked two scoreless innings for Tampa Bay, according to Sports Illustrated, as part of a Rays bullpen effort that matched Milwaukee through the late innings and gave the offence time to find the winning rally.
What the Rays vs Brewers Game 4 Result Means for Game 5 and the Series
The immediate consequence is simple: the series continues. Game 5 is scheduled for Wednesday, 28 October 2026, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, with first pitch at 7:08 p.m. Central Time. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Jacob Misiorowski was the likely starter for Milwaukee in Game 5. If Tampa Bay wins Game 5, the series returns to Milwaukee for Game 6 on Friday, 30 October, and Game 7, if necessary, on Saturday, 31 October. If Milwaukee wins Game 5, the Brewers will win the first World Series title in franchise history. The Game 3 rout that put Milwaukee 3-0 ahead is now only part of the story, because a 3-1 series with the next game on Tampa Bay's field feels very different from a sweep completed on the road. Milwaukee still holds the advantage, but Tampa Bay holds the momentum of a walk-off win and the knowledge that it has now beaten Milwaukee in a close game.
The broader stakes remain historic for both clubs. Before 2026, the Milwaukee Brewers had never won the World Series and had reached it only once, in 1982, when they lost 4-3 to the St. Louis Cardinals after leading that series 3-2. The Tampa Bay Rays had also never won a World Series, so the 2026 series guarantees a first-time champion. Milwaukee won 103 games to top the National League in the regular season, according to Flashscore, while Tampa Bay topped the American League, which is why this matchup was presented as a meeting of the two best regular-season teams rather than a surprise final. Game 4 showed why that framing held up: the two teams were separated by one run after 12 innings, by one hit in the final line, and by one error at the start of the winning rally. A series that looked like a coronation after Game 3 now looks like a contest again, and Game 5 will decide whether Tampa Bay's comeback becomes a series or merely a delay.
For readers following the series, the questions after Game 4 are practical as well as dramatic. Can Tampa Bay's bullpen repeat a scoreless late-innings performance in Game 5, and can Milwaukee's offence, held to three runs in Game 4 after scoring 10 in Game 3, find another early lead? Will Pratt and Chourio continue to produce at the top of Milwaukee's order, and will Tampa Bay find more from the middle of its lineup than the single-inning rally that won Game 4? The answers will come quickly, with Game 5 played less than 24 hours after Game 4 ended in the early hours of Wednesday morning Eastern Time. What Game 4 already answered is whether Tampa Bay could win a close game against Milwaukee in this World Series. The Rays did, in the longest and most dramatic game of the series so far, and they did it after being three outs from elimination. That is why the Rays vs Brewers Game 4 result will be remembered not just as a 4-3 score, but as the night the World Series started again.
Sources: USA Today reporting on the Rays' 4-3 walk-off win in World Series Game 4, Ben Williamson's walk-off single, Cooper Pratt's 12th-inning home run and the Game 5 schedule, 28 October 2026; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel live reporting on the Game 4 box score, the 12th-inning sequence, Jacob Misiorowski as the likely Game 5 starter and the full series schedule, 27-28 October 2026; Sportradar match data for World Series Game 4 scoring plays, innings and the 4-3 result at Tropicana Field, 28 October 2026; NBC Sports reporting on Cooper Pratt's 4-for-5 game and Ben Williamson's first postseason run batted in, 28 October 2026; Flashscore reporting on the Game 4 comeback, Griffin Jax, the 103-win regular season and the series context, 28 October 2026; Sports Illustrated reporting on the extra-innings win and Bryan Baker's scoreless innings, 28 October 2026; Google Trends Trending Now list showing "Brewers" at more than 500,000 searches, accessed 28 October 2026; and Worldlession's earlier reporting on Brewers vs Rays World Series Game 3 and the history of both franchises.