The clock has struck midnight...
As the cliche goes, play with fire long enough and you're going to get burned. It took 7 elimination games for the Rays to finally lose one this postseason, but lose it they did and the Dodgers are World Champions after a masterful performance from LA lefty Max Fried, acquired the winter before last from Atlanta for Keibert Ruiz. The Series win was the the fourth in seven years for the Dodgers, as they've taken a page from their long-time rivals the Giants and won in 2020, 2022, 2024 and now 2026.
Joe Ryan was terrible today in what could be his final Rays appearance (he's projected for $7.5M in arbitration), unusually wild with the 4 walks and not-so-unusually homer-prone in giving up a 3-run shot to Max Muncy and a solo blast to that guy again, Randy Arozarena. The homer was Arozarena's 10th of the playoffs, tying his own record set in 2020 when he was up against the Dodgers in the World Series with the Rays, and his 29th career postseason homer, tying Manny Ramirez for the all-time MLB record. Elsewhere the offense died as it lived this year: struggling to score runs. In the interest of fairness, here's a shot of the Dodgers celebrating at the Trop:
