Homers soar for Dodgers, Astros
Baseball world marvels at moonshots as series starts with wacky first two games
HOUSTON — As a couple of Astros loosened up in the outfield, the retractable roof at Minute Maid Park made its slow crawl, turning the bright sun into shade.
That might be the only way to keep balls from flying completely out of the yard at this power-packed World Series.
A day after Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and Houston combined with the Los Angeles Dodgers for a Series-record eight home runs in the Astros’ 7-6, 11-inning win, the baseball world was still marveling over the moonshots.
So were the players who launched them.
“Actually, when I was getting off the plane with (Carlos) Beltran, I was talking to him, and I was like, what was going through your head when Altuve hit the homer? He was like, ‘We were going crazy in the dugout,’ ” Astros third baseman Alex Game 4 Tonight, 8:09 TV: Chs. 45, 5 Bregman said.
“Then I was like what about when Correa hit his, what about when they hit theirs? And they hit theirs,” he said, laughing. “We were just going back and forth.”
After a Major League Baseball season that set a record for the most home runs, the World Series is off to a flying start.
Already a whopping 11 homers — six by Los Angeles — as the sides split the first two games at Dodger Stadium. At this rate, they’d shatter the Series record of 21 in 2002 when Barry Bonds and Giants lost to the Angels in seven games.
The curveballing Lance McCullers Jr. starts Game 3 for Houston on Friday night against Yu Darvish, and the roof will be Yuli Gurriel kept the power surge going for the Astros in Game 3 on Friday night, hitting a solo home run during the second inning against the Dodgers in Houston.