Baseball's Most Exciting Games, No. 11: The Pandemic Classic

Game 4, 2020 World Series: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Tampa Bay Rays

October 24, 2020, Globe Life Field, Arlington, Texas

Dodgers lead series 2-1

Despite his best efforts, Brett Phillips cannot fly.

If there was an image that could succinctly capture the strangeness and awkwardness that was the pandemic-shortened 2020 Major League season, it was this: Tampa Bay's Randy Arozarena was laying flat on his stomach in the batters' box, slapping his hand on home plate in celebration, while his teammate Brett Phillips was running around in shallow left field with his arms spread out like an airplane's wings, all while Los Angeles catcher Will Smith was futilely chasing after the loose ball behind the plate. And all of this was happening in of a quarter-full stadium of mostly neutral fans more than 900 miles from either team's home park.

The game was chaotic enough even without the ending. The teams traded leads three times between the sixth and eighth innings. They combined to use 13 pitchers; 9 of those pitchers gave up at least one run. The Rays used every position player except their backup catcher. And that was all in just the first 8 innings.

Trailing 7-6 entering the bottom of the 9th, three outs from being down 3-1 in the series, the Rays struggled to start a comeback. Leadoff hitter Yoshi Tsutsugo struck out. After a Kevin Kiermaier broken-bat single - a ball that Kiké Hernandez just missed catching - Joey Wendle flied out to center. That left the Rays with a runner on first with two outs, a 10 percent chance of winning. A walk to Arozarena came next, bringing up former pinch-runner Brett Phillips for only his third at bat of the entire postseason.

And that's when the chaos started.

The single to center was simple enough. That ball, with the speed of Kiermaier at second, would have been enough to tie the game. But shortstop turned centerfielder Chris Taylor bobbled the grounder, so Arozarena kept running. Taylor threw in to first baseman Max Muncy, who turned to throw home, which is right around the time that Arozarena slipped and did a somersault. As Muncy threw home, Arozarena started heading back to third, but Smith didn't see that, so he tried to catch Muncy's throw and tag Arozarena at the same time. Arozarena wasn't there, but the ball wasn't either, bouncing away from Smith toward the Dodgers dugout. Arozarena changed directions again, and before anybody could react he was slapping home plate and Phillips was flying through the outfield.  

More flying.

The best games leave everybody exhausted. The Dodgers trudged out of their dugout in glassy-eyed silence. Phillips ended his attempts at taking flight and bent over with his hands on his knees, so shocked his teammates were genuinely worried about him. Arozarena had a big grin on his face, but only enough energy for a few high-fives. No airplanes for him.

And then we were reminded of what we'd been missing. If you watched the broadcast, it seem loud, but Fox had pumped in fake noise to the television feed all postseason, so in reality it was 11,441 fans in a stadium that held 40,300, cheering for an amazing game between two teams they mostly didn't care about. Picture the noise if the game had been in St. Petersburg: The initial burst when Phillips got the hit, the louder burst when Taylor bobbled the ball, the loudest one when the throw home went awry. They would have torn the roof off of Tropicana Field.

But it was, strangely enough, in Texas. A strange play in a strange location, perfectly fitting for a strange season.

Game 4, 2020 World Series Overall Rank: 11 Top 10 Swing: 254 Top play: Brett Phillips' game-winning single (WPA of 82% for Tampa Bay - the third highest single-play WPA in World Series history) Loser's largest WE: 90 B9, 2 out, runner on first, Los Angeles up 7-6 Average LI: 1.65 Highest leverage moment: 6.72 (Phillips' game-ending at bat)