The second-guessers owe Pat Murphy an apology for Game 4

Pat Murphy got it right on Tuesday night, and everybody who spent Wednesday morning yelling about it owes him a quiet apology. Leaving Jacob Misiorowski in his bullpen chair while Game 4 slipped away in the 12th inning wasn't a manager losing his nerve. It was a manager refusing to trade a whole Game 5 for a few outs, and Milwaukee is the champion because he wouldn't make that trade.

I'll grant the second-guessers their best moment, because it was a good one. The Brewers were up three games to none, one inning from a sweep, and the ace was sitting right there. Misiorowski went 16-5 with a 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts this season. Instead the 12th went to Antonio Senzatela, then Shane Drohan after Joey Ortiz's throwing error put Junior Caminero on, and the Rays won 4-3 on Ben Williamson's walk-off. ESPN noted Misiorowski never so much as stretched. If you're sitting at home, that looks like a man watching a fire with a hose in his lap.

Here's what the hose actually was. Misiorowski had started all 33 of his appearances this year, regular season and playoffs. Not one in relief. Murphy said he'd have had to get himself ready in a hurry, adjust to the mound, get his body going, and then, if he gives up a walk or a hit, "now somebody different is pitching today." That's the whole argument, and it's a good one. You'd be asking a starter to do a reliever's job for the first time in the biggest spot of his life, and paying for it the next night whether it works or not.

Now look at what Tampa Bay did with the same problem. The Rays started Drew Rasmussen in Game 5 on three days' rest, after he'd thrown 89 pitches in Game 2, and he was good. One run in four innings. Then he was done and their bullpen gave up three runs over the next two. Misiorowski, on four days' rest and doing the one job he's done all year, gave up two hits and a walk over five and two-thirds scoreless innings and walked off to a standing ovation. One team pushed its ace past his routine. The other kept him on it. I don't need a spreadsheet to tell me which one got the better start.

I've been in enough press boxes to know how this works, and Murphy said it better than I could. He doesn't get these questions when it goes the other way. If Ortiz makes that throw, there's one out in the 12th, Senzatela probably finishes it, and nobody's writing about a bullpen chair. The decision didn't get worse because a ball sailed. Managers get roasted for results all the time, and some of them deserve it. This one deserves the opposite.

Could it have blown up? Sure. Lose Game 5 and the series goes back to a 3-2 grind with everybody asking where the ace was on Tuesday. That's the risk Murphy took, and he took it with his eyes open. I'd rather have a manager who'll eat a bad night to protect a good plan than one who burns the plan to dodge a talk-radio segment. Milwaukee had the first kind. The trophy says it worked, but I'd have said the same thing if it hadn't.

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