PETERSBURG, Fla. — There comes a time in every battle when exhaustion overtakes reason. When the body can no longer summon what the spirit demands. When even hope, sometimes, the most stubborn of human instincts, begins to surrender.
Then comes the cruelest realization of all. The one that settles in the pit of one's stomach before creeping between the ears and whispering: For the Rays, that realization might have arrived in the top of the fifth inning of Monday's Game 3 beatdown at the hands of the Brewers. Their hearts were ripped from their chests beneath the gaze of a sold-out Tropicana Field, where 40,388 fans gathered, hoping to witness redemption.
Instead, they were left with a reckoning. A 10-1 reckoning, to be exact, one that puts them on the brink of elimination of this year's World Series. It's easy to point to the seven straight hits that produced eight runs.
But look a little closer. The resignation began long before the pain set in. Before the pulse came to a bludgeoned halt.
The tone was set when Jackson Chourio laced his third straight single off Freddy Peralta with one out in the fifth. That's when Peralta's pitch count continued its climb toward 87 on the evening. That's when his breaths grew deeper, as though he sensed the bloodbath awaiting him if he couldn't regain command.
That's when his mechanics began to betray him, landing too soon on his front side and robbing him of his usual extension. And that's when he began reaching for the bill of his cap a little more frequently, searching for something to occupy his hands while his mind wrestled with the inevitable: The Brewers. "I think they're good at not trying to do too much," Peralta said afterward.
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