All tied up.
Marc Wagner fell victim to his inability to keep the ball in the park, and a questionable call by the third base coach combined to doom the Rays to a 5-4 loss and allow Texas to even their best-of-7 ALCS at 2 games apiece. The Rays jumped out to a 2-0 lead on RBI doubles from Nate Clark in the 1st and Dayle Jenkins in the 3rd, but Wagner started giving up the longball, with 2-run homers to Nico Hoerner in the 3rd and Keston Hiura in the 4th, and a solo shot to Adrian Ramos in the 5th to make it 5-2. Jack Leiter pitched 3 scoreless innings in relief to keep the Rays in the game and they nearly repeated their feat in Game 1 when Jim Connors did not do well in his second inning of relief. They loaded the bases with nobody out, Clark hit a 2-run double to make it 5-4, but then Joe Barker's fly ball seemed deep enough to tie the game but Bobby Owens made an incredible throw to nail Dayle Jenkins at the plate, and Victor de Jesus grounded out to end the game. Was there another situation where Adley Rustchman could have come up big but didn't? You betcha. With one out in the 6th the Rays had two men on but Rutschman struck out as part of an 0-4 game. Now it's a best-of-3 series with Christian Little against Victor Presas in a Game 1 rematch tomorrow.
It's not a best-of-3 series in the NLCS, where the Columbus Lightning are now one game from the sweep:
Adam Hill was brilliant again, and Trent Deveaux continued his big postseason with a homer to put the Bolts on the cusp of their first World Series in Columbus.