Omaha Beach rallies to win in Santa Anita comeback
The Astros survived a wild ninth inning to beat the Tampa Bay Rays 3-1 on Saturday night for a 2-0 lead in their AL Division Series.
Houston is one win from reaching the AL Championship Series for the third straight year.
Cole, 5-0 with a 1.07 ERA in six starts last month, set an Astros postseason strikeouts record over 7-2/3 scoreless innings to win his franchise-record 17th straight decision. The strikeouts tied for third-most in a postseason game, behind only Bob Gibson’s 17 in the 1968 World Series and Kevin Brown’s 16 in a 1998 NL Division Series.
Cole’s performance came after fellow ace and Cy Young Award contender Justin Verlander pitched seven scoreless innings to lead the Astros to a 6-2 win in Friday’s opener.
Throwback performances from another era.
Cole (1-0), who led the majors with 326 strikeouts in the regular season, extended his big league record with his 10th straight game with at least 10 Ks.
The Rays were unable to string anything together off of him on a night he induced 33 swings and misses – the most in a postseason game since MLB started tracking the stat in 2008 – and threw a career-high 118 pitches.
Kevin Kiemaier doubled with two outs in the eighth and Cole was lifted after putting on Adames with Tampa Bay’s first walk. ARCADIA, California, Oct 6, (AP): Omaha Beach rallied to beat 1-5 favorite Shancelot by a head in the $300,000 Santa Anita Sprint Championship, winning after a six-month layoff for the former Kentucky Derby favorite.
Trained by Richard Mandella, Omaha Beach earned an automatic berth in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint next month over the same track.
“I’m going to drink that big bottle of Champagne and think it over,” Mandella said in the winner’s circle.
HORSE RACING
Ridden by Mike Smith, Omaha Beach ran six furlongs in 1:08.79 and paid $7.20, $2.40 and $2.10.
Shancelot returned $2.10 and $2.10, while Flagstaff was another 2-1/2 lengths back in third and paid $2.10 to show.
Omaha Beach was the favorite for the Kentucky Derby in May, but the colt was found to have an entrapped epiglottis and later had throat surgery that forced him out of the race.
The colt was set to return sooner, but a virus kept him from running at Del Mar. Then he was going to run in Kentucky, but a workout leading up to the race didn’t go well, so Mandella changed plans yet again.
Seeing nothing else suitable, the Hall of Fame trainer kept Omaha Beach at his home track for the Grade 1 race.
Earlier in the day, about 50 workers and supporters of horse racing rallied outside the track’s main entrance.
They toted signs expressing their love of horses and support for the jobs and lifestyle the industry provides in California. Passing motorists honked and waved in support.
Protesters have trod the same ground in recent months to criticize the deaths of 32 horses at the track since December and urge that the sport be abolished. However, none of them was among the pro-racing crowd at the rally, where a five-piece band played and trainer Doug O’Neill delivered tacos for lunch.
“Just want to be a voice of how proud we are of our horses and our jobs and our lives,” said O’Neill, who trained Kentucky Derby winners I’ll Have Another in 2012 and Nyquist in 2016. “Trainers, grooms, hotwalkers, exercise riders, we’ve chose this as our career. It’s very important to keep our voice very much alive and at the forefront.”
O’Neill said he expects more such rallies or as he called them “celebrations.”
“There’s so many workers both front-side and backside that just feel paralyzed,” he said. “Having these kind of celebrations where we can all talk together and be with each other and really show that we are truly the backbone of the business, this is the reality, the love, the passion.”