EPIC VICTORY PUTS ASTROS ON BRINK OF SERIES CROWN
After winning one of the most memorable postseason games in history, the Astros are on the brink of a World Series championship.
HOUSTON — The roars that cascaded around jam-packed Minute Maid Park for more than five hours have subsided by now, but the memories of the biggest win in franchise history Sunday night will undoubtedly linger.
And just maybe so will Houston’s lead in this World Series.
In one of the wildest, wackiest and most compelling Fall Classic games ever, the Houston Astros out-drama-ed the Los Angeles Dodgers, coming back from big deficits not once, not twice, but three stadium-rocking times before outlasting the visitors for an 13-12 10th-inning victory that clinched the World Ser, uh, no. Wait, it’s not over? They have to play more?
“The first thing we’re going to do,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said, “is get some sleep.”
They laid their heads on their pillows with the knowledge their dreams of winning the first World Series is franchise history is a step closer, thanks to a riveting game with more twists and turns than a cheap detective novel and one
‘These are just two really good teams. Just throwing haymakers at each other trying to outlast each other.’ A.J. Hinch, Astros manager
that didn’t seem to want to end.
They won’t have their orange towel-waving, lungs-baring crowd that was literally on their feet for much of Sunday’s game, but they will have ace Justin Verlander in Tuesday’s Game 6. They’re one victory away after taking a 3-2 lead in a game for the ages if not the aged. They’ll know that in the previous 65 times that the Series has stood at 3-2, the team with the lead won it all in 43 of them. That’s good enough for Astros fans.
You’ll have to forgive all of Houston if the collective city is still more than a little hoarse. And emotionally exhausted as well. This one was epic. Capital E.
“I think this whole series has been an emotional roller-coaster,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
Few games could top Houston’s 7-6, 11-inning win over the Dodgers in Los Angeles when the two clubs totaled eight home runs, five of them in the extra innings, but this one did.
On a night that featured two pitchers with a combined four Cy Young trophies on their shelves, the teams put up 25 total runs, the most in a Series game in 20 years. Three-time Cy Young winner Clayton Kershaw got roughed up for six runs in 4⅔ innings. Houston’s Dallas Keuchel lasted less, gone after 3⅔ innings.
“These are just two really good teams,” Hinch said, “just throwing haymakers at each other trying to outlast each other.”
Not sure that the nation’s collective blood pressure can take much more suspense than this thrilling series, which has offered questionable and successful managerial moves, highs and lows out of the bullpen, aces that didn’t pitch like it, castoffs and journeymen that pitched like aces, and home runs. Cheap ones, crushed ones. Short ones, long ones.
But lots and lots of home runs, specifically a record 22 combined in these five games. Eight homers came in that Game 2. Another seven in this Game 5. Beer leagues don’t offer this many long balls.
There were lazy home runs that creeped over the wall into the Crawford Boxes seemingly a long arm’s length from home plate like Carlos Correa’s that plopped down in the second row of seats in the Astros’ pivotal four-run seventh. There were rockets like that which George Springer crushed and sent over the railroad tracks to lead off that same inning.
There were great defensive plays like Dodgers first baseman Cody Bellinger practically climbing into the first base seats to gather in Correa’s high foul ball in the ninth and right fielder Josh Reddick’s great break and catch on Justin Turner’s liner in the 10th. Both catchers Brian McCann and Austin Barnes caught every high-pressure pitch. All 417 of them.
And there was hero Alex Bregman, the Astros’ budding star in his first full season who homered in Game 4 and on this night singled off Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen in the 10th to score pinch-runner Derek Fisher with the game-winner well after midnight.
“I looked at Carlos before my at-bat,” Bregman said, “and he said, ‘It’s your time.’”
The game took some five hours and 17 minutes after the first pitch — the second-longest in World Series history — but Altuve said, “I can play a 10-hour game if we are going to win.”
The Astros bested Kershaw, the best pitcher of this generation.
They trailed 3-0 in the first. They were behind 4-0 after 31/2 innings. They trailed 8-7. They came back from them all.
And then the Dodgers pulled out their own magic, rallying from a 12-9 deficit in the ninth inning and tying it on that Chris Taylor’s single to deflate 43,300 spent fans.
But that only set up even more heroics and more memories.
So stick it in a time capsule. Put it in your memoirs. Call your grandmother. But never ever forget it.
“It’s crazy, man,” Correa said. “I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack out there every single time.”
And now he gets to do it all over again. Game 6 is Tuesday night.