Allie Wenskoski, Junior
The Major League Baseball 2020 season came to a close Tuesday night with the Los Angeles Dodgers beating the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1. This was the Dodgers’ first World Series win since 1988 and was celebrated at a neutral site, Globe Life Field in Texas, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Dodgers won the series 4-2 against the Rays, winning the last two games. Though it was an odd and shortened MLB season with different rules, the league pushed through and finally made it to their biggest night of the year. Here’s your 2020 World Series Game 6 recap:
The Rays started their ace Blake Snell to try to force a game 7. It was do-or-die for the Rays, as losing would mean that the Dodgers would take the title. Snell dominated through 5 ⅓ innings with only two hits and nine strikeouts. However, his streak ended when Austin Barnes, the number 9 hitter for the Dodgers, singled in the sixth inning. Even though Snell was only at 73 pitches for the game, Rays manager Kevin Cash pulled him and brought in Nick Anderson. At this time, the Rays were winning 1-0 after a solo home run by Randy Arozarena. Bringing in Anderson proved to be a huge mistake, however, after the Dodgers took the lead just after six pitches. It remained 2-1 until the bottom of the 8th inning where Mookie Betts widened the lead with a solo home run. The Dodgers’ bullpen was excellent and Julio Urais retired the last 7 batters for the Rays, claiming the victory. While L.A. fans celebrated, the defeated Rays were left to wonder if the game outcome would have been different if Snell was left in longer.
If that wasn’t enough, the night’s festivities weren’t over after the last pitch. The first chaos erupted in the eighth inning, when star Dodger Justin Turner was pulled from the game. He made his departure after registering the first MLB positive COVID test in 59 days. Even in spite of this, he returned an hour after the game to celebrate his team’s win, and only wore a mask for some of the time. He tweeted, “So proud of this team & unbelievably happy for the City of LA,” with #WorldSeriesChamps, only mentioning his positive test by saying he felt “great”. Turner’s shocking news faded with the announcement of Cory Seager as the World Series MVP. In this last series with the Rays, Seager was 8 for 20 with two home runs, five RBIs, six walks, four strikeouts, one stolen base, and seven runs scored. His excitement was shown in his interview: “We had an unbelievable postseason, both sides of the field. We ran bases, we pitched, we played defense, we hit, we scored runs when we needed to. You can’t say enough about what we did this year.”
This concludes Major League Baseball until Opening Day, April 1, 2021.
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