SMITH: A SWING AND A MISS WHEN IT COUNTS.
If the Astros don’t do better with RISP, their 107-win season soon will be RIP
The white noise cranked louder and louder, peaking in the bottom of a seventh inning that defined the first game of this World Series.
Absolutely packed stands in downtown Houston, saturated in orange and blue, were replaced by the sight of an electric stadium standing in unison.
Yordan Alvarez finally had broken through on Tuesday night against the National League’s Washington Nationals. So when the expected American League Rookie of the Year stepped into the box with the bases loaded and Max Scherzer long gone, the initial moment of truth in the 2019 Fall Classic had arrived.
The Astros were either going to be the 107-win Astros or they were not. And this crazy, increasingly problematic thing commonly referred to as RISP was either going to get fixed … or it was not.
You know exactly what happened.
Alvarez was erased on high heat out of the zone.
Searing white noise was sucked away in one second.
The Astros couldn’t do what had to be done when it really mattered.
And 5-4 Nats inside Minute Maid Park became 1-0 Washington in the World Series.
Only a non-Houstonian would say Houston, you have a ______.
But you know it and I’ve watched it, and it’s an undisputed fact 12 games into October for these Astros. They have a serious RISP problem. If it isn’t solved by the time Game 2 is complete, the Nationals soon will be dreaming of their first world championship.
“Better take my bat home, sleep with it and figure it out,” said Alex Bregman, the regularseason AL MVP candidate who went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and left three on base in Game 1.
Scherzer only lasted five innings as A.J. Hinch’s squad kept pushing Washington’s ace to methodical 3-2 counts.
The Astros led 2-0 after the first, thanks to Yuli Gurriel lining an RBI double — with runners in scoring position — against the left-field wall.
Yet it was 5-2 Washington before Scherzer threw his 112th pitch.
Simple math in our highly analytical contemporary baseball world: If the home team goes 3-for-12 with RISP, it very likely isn’t winning the first game of the World Series.
Hinch has been down 1-0 and won the World Series before. His team was blanked 7-0 by the Yankees in Houston in Game 1 of the AL Championship Series. The Astros’ manager chose his standard optimistic route.
“We’re not going to be perfect. When you look back in a close game like this, there’s probably an opportunity or two that you’d like back,” Hinch said. “But there’s also a little bit of keep pushing with these guys. … We are a results-oriented game. But I like the opportunities we’re creating for ourselves and making them use a lot of pitching (Tuesday). Maybe that’s a good sign for the remainder of the series.”
Carlos Correa took a slightly different path, declaring Game 2 a must-win.
Bregman kept hammering himself, acknowledging that RISP is holding his team back.
“One hundred percent, and it starts with me,” the Astros’ cleanup hitter said. “I’ve been terrible this postseason.”
George Springer tried to fix it all himself. He blasted his 14th playoff home run since 2015 in the bottom of the seventh. An inning later, Springer drilled a shot to the edge of the Astros’ bullpen, sending pinch hitter Kyle Tucker across home plate.
But a flyout followed, then a lineout to left field. Springer remained on second, and the Astros entered the final inning having left 11 men on base. The ninth was a dud, and then it was done.
Going 3-for-12 with RISP is severely troubling in April, June and August. In the final series of October, against a buzzing opponent with rapidly rising confidence that will throw Stephen Strasburg in Game 2?
That’s a straight, hard path to a disappointing L and mounting inning-by-inning frustration for screaming, then suddenly silenced, fans.
Correa can’t always walk it off in the 11th with a heroic home run to right field. Jose Altuve can’t always end a series with an even more heroic, instant classic shot to left.
The Astros were 14-of-70 with RISP entering Tuesday. Now they’re a woeful 17-of-82. If that keeps up, the Nats will be hosting a parade in our nation’s capital.
Runs must be developed, earned and stacked in October. Not even these Astros can consistently count on stunning three-run homers.
“We have to play better if we want to win,” Bregman said, perfectly summing up Game 1.
The Astros struggled hard at the plate against Tampa Bay, and that’s why the Rays took the AL Divison Series to a final Game 5. The Astros’ bats disappeared in Game 1 of the ALCS, and that’s why they opened against the Yankees in a 1-0 hole. To overcome New York, Hinch’s club required two walkoffs and a pieced-together bullpen in Game 6.
Gerrit Cole took the mound in October, and the Astros lost. That tells you how Game 1 went.
But the real sound was silence.
All those fans, standing and hoping and screaming and … then quietly sitting down again.
No matter what they do off the field, the Astros rarely let you down between the lines.
In the first game of the World Series, you were left waiting on the same thing you’ve been waiting on since October began.
A breakthrough that lasts.