The Tampa Bay Rays staved off elimination Tuesday night with a gutsy victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the World Series. They at least prevented a sweep but Rays shortstop Taylor Walls made it clear that the team is not interested in any sort of moral victories with his response to reporter Ken Rosenthal ahead of Wednesday night’s Game 5.
Rosenthal asked Walls, “Was it important to win one [game] just to show you’re on this level?” Walls did not allow the question to slide as he responded with the following after literally laughing after Rosenthal’s query: “No. I don’t know, I think that’s pretty disrespectful, honestly. We’re a team that’s capable of winning four [games]. Obviously, no team wants to be swept but we think we can win the whole thing.”
To Rosenthal’s credit, he did apologize for his wording in the middle of Walls’ response so he seemed to acknowledge that his query did not come out quite how he wanted it, but it’s more than understandable why Walls would take offense to a question like that. From his perspective, Rosenthal was essentially asking if it’s nice to at least get one win to prove to everyone that they actually deserved to be in the World Series.
No team wants to just show up, win a game, and then call it quits. Even if the Rays mounting a comeback and winning four straight games to become the first team to win a World Series after going down 3-0 is fairly unlikely, they have to believe they have a chance to pull it off otherwise there’s no point in even going out there.
Rays have club option on Walls in the offseason
As for Walls, Rosenthal’s question might just be the extra motivation he needs since he’s had a really poor postseason. The 30-year-old shortstop is hitting just .111/.200/.111 with four hits in 36 at-bats during the playoffs so he really needs to step up if the Rays are going to have any chance at winning Game 5 to send the series back to Milwaukee for Game 6.
He’s surely not thinking about this but he has a $3.1 million club option that the Rays will have to think about exercising or not in the offseason. After a pretty pedestrian regular season in which he hit .222/.309/.298 with two homers and 36 runs batted in, there’s no guarantees the Rays will do that but if he can be an unlikely postseason hero then maybe they will reconsider.
His focus is on winning Game 5 though and Rosenthal’s poorly worded question is only going to add more fuel as Walls and the Rays try to do the improbable with ace Drew Rasmussen on the mound.
Rays SS Taylor Walls Shut Down Ken Rosenthal for ‘Disrespectful’ Question