ASTROS RIDE KING COLE TO ALCS AGAINST YANKEES
Ace starter turns in dominating effort once again, second straight with double-digit Ks
The mighty Houston Astros were more than willing to take it, but with 107 regular-season wins and their home ace Gerrit Cole on the mound, being staked to a generous first-inning lead hardly seemed necessary.
Nor fair, really.
But that’s what unfolded Thursday night at a juiced-up Minute Maid Park as the Astros bolted out to a big first-inning lead and rolled to a 6-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays.
The victory sent the Astros’ orbit off to the ALCS for a third consecutive season. The 2017 World Series champions will open that best-of-seven series here versus the New York Yankees starting on Saturday night.
Unlike dramatic home losses by the Dodgers and Braves in NLDS Game 5s the previous night, the Astros were all business from the start. And when they opened the game with four consecutive hits and a fifth two batters later, suddenly they were off to a flying 4-0 lead.
And yes, with Cole on the mound, the crater was going to be much, much too deep for any team, but especially the wild card-winning Rays.
Consider that the powerful right-hander Cole was literally unbeatable at home since May and was dominant in Game 2 of this series, going 72/3 scoreless innings, so the Astros were sitting pretty.
Cole just kept on dealing, however. He left the game after eight innings, allowing just two hits and striking out 10, giving him an incredible 25 total in his two starts in the series. The potent right-hander led the post-game celebrations on the field, lifting his diminutive star teammate Jose Altuve off his feet in celebration.
It was an MLB-record 11th consecutive game that Cole had recorded double-digit strikeouts, a fearsome run that, when coupled with what fellow ace Justin Verlander can do, makes the Astros seem near-invincible.
Cole retired the final 15 batters he faced and with each strikeout the boisterous sellout crowd of 43,418 grew even louder in its frenzy.
They almost blew the roof off in the ninth when Michael Brantley and Alex Bregman hit back-to-back homers to increase the Astros’ lead to five runs.
While it wasn’t quite the
10-run barrage the visiting Cardinals inflicted on the Braves in their Game 5 triumph the previous night, the early lead certainly set the tone for the Astros and sucked the drama from the rest of the contest.
Though going the distance in the best of five perhaps took a little more work than expected of the Astros, the pending clash with the Yankees is thick with promise. With 210 wins between them (the 107 by the Astros gives them home-field advantage), it looms as the showdown of these playoffs thus far.
THE EAST HAS BEASTS
Charlie Montoyo is well aware of how tough it is to survive in the American League East — he has spent all of his post-season coaching life in the iron-tough division — and knows it isn’t about to get easier any time soon.
But from the potential pain, the first-year Blue Jays manager saw plenty of gain, a notion affirmed by what has unfolded thus far in the American League playoffs. First, the Yankees breezed to a three-game sweep of the Minnesota Twins and then the Tampa Bay Rays took the heavily favoured Astros to a Game 5 here on Thursday night.
In Montoyo’s opinion, the prospect of two AL East teams being that close to squaring off in the ALCS adds further credibility to some of his team’s modest late-season success.
“I love the fact that we competed well against them and actually beat them in some games when the games mattered,” Montoyo told Postmedia via text. “Our tough schedule was the best thing that happened to all our kids.”
In the final month of the season, the Jays had series wins over each of their prime divisional rivals: the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays, as well as a sweep of the lowly Orioles.
GAME ON
The Astros inflicted their early damage on Rays starter Tyler Glasnow, who eventually went 22/3 innings with all five of his hits and four runs allowed coming in the fateful first.
Cash was managing his butt off to hold the Astros’ batters at bay. When Emilio Pagan came in with two out in the Astros’ seventh, it was the eighth pitcher the Rays had employed on the night.
The lone Rays player to inflict any damage on Cole was second baseman Eric Sogard, the ex-Jay who was dealt to Tampa prior to the deadline.
Sogard’s first career post-season home run was a solo shot to lead off the second inning.
The biggest blow in the Astros’ first was a Bregman double that scored both Brantley and Altuve. Altuve made some history with his eighth-inning homer. It was the 11th post-season blast of his career, a playoff record for second basemen.
The last team to advance to three consecutive ALCS appearances was the 2011-13 Detroit Tigers, who had none other than Verlander as their ace.