With Candy Maldonado, a right-handed batter, due up next, Williams ordered Stanton to walk Sprague to load the bases and then lifted him from the game in favor of Game 2 loser Jeff Reardon. Reardon had recorded some success against Maldonado in his career, and looked to do so again with two curveballs for strikes. However, instead of switching pitches, Reardon elected to throw a third curve and Maldonado, who was expecting it, drove a single to deep center to bring in a Tomahawk Chopping Alomar in from third with the winning run. Reardon later explained "People ask, why'd you throw another curve? Well, I threw another curve because he looked sick on the first two." Maldonado, for his part, said "I figured after he made me look so bad the first two that he wasn't going to change, and I guess I guessed right."