Lexington's Sal Frelick Hit Four Homers All Season. Then He Tied World Series Game 2 With One, and the Brewers Lead 2-0
The former Boston College outfielder, from Lexington, Mass., launched a game-tying solo shot to dead center in the sixth, and Milwaukee came back from 4-0 down to beat Tampa Bay 5-4. Game 3 is Monday at 8 p.m. on FOX.
There's a kid from Lexington two wins from a World Series ring, and Saturday night he hit the biggest home run of his life.
Sal Frelick, who grew up in Lexington and played his college ball at Boston College, tied Game 2 of the World Series with a solo homer to straightaway center field in the sixth inning, and the Milwaukee Brewers went on to beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-4 at American Family Field, according to MLB.com. Milwaukee leads the series 2-0.
Understand how unlikely this was. Frelick hit four home runs all regular season, MLB.com reports. He hadn't homered since July 11. He finished with a .614 OPS. And this was just the fourth home run of his career against a left-handed pitcher, postseason included. He was facing Rays lefty Ian Seymour with Milwaukee down 4-3, and he worked a nine-pitch at-bat before Seymour left a 92.9 mph four-seamer over too much of the plate.
"I don't hit a lot of home runs, especially to center," Frelick said. "So just happy that one got out."
The best part is the manager. Pat Murphy, per MLB.com, likes to needle Frelick that he can't hit the ball to center because it'll be an out the rest of his life. So after the homer, all Frelick wanted was to get back to the dugout and give Murph a fist bump. Before the game, Murphy compared him to Dustin Pedroia, whom he coached at Arizona State. "He has this edge about him that he believes in himself," Murphy said. Boston fans know exactly what kind of player that comparison describes. Undersized, relentless, impossible to rattle.
"I wasn't always the most gifted athlete," Frelick said. "I just always felt like that was where I was able to get my edge, just turn everything into a competition." That is the most Massachusetts sentence I've read all week.
The comeback itself was something. Tampa Bay scored four in the first. Milwaukee answered with two right away, added one in the fourth, and tied it on Frelick's swing. Cooper Pratt drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh. MLB.com notes it was Milwaukee's second comeback from four or more runs down this postseason, after the NLCS clincher against the Dodgers, and only four other teams have done that in a single postseason. Frelick also had four hard-hit balls on the night as the Brewers made Tampa's staff throw 184 pitches.
His teammates sounded like they'd been waiting for this moment for him. "That was my favorite swing of the year. It's not even close," pitcher Aaron Ashby said. "He's the glue guy." Jake Bauers said he almost started crying in the dugout.
The series shifts to Tampa Bay for Game 3 on Monday at 8 p.m. ET on FOX, according to MLB's postseason schedule.
My two cents: Red Sox fans have had a quiet October. If you need somebody to root for, a Lexington kid who plays like Pedroia is a pretty good option.
