‘One day to stop the bleeding’
At least publicly, the Astros say they aren’t panicking despite surprise 0-2 deficit
WASHINGTON — They keep saying it over and over, and the truth of it can’t be denied: When it comes to being on the ragged edge of catastrophe, teetering on the edge of collapse, reeling from repeated misfortunes, the Astros have been here before.
This time, however, “here” comes on the road, two games down in a best-of-seven series, thrust into the role as foils to the Washington Nationals in the first World Series game to be played in the nation’s capital in 86 years.
It’s not a comfortable situation, and it could be downright intolerable but for the eternal comfort food that fuels this generation of Astros as it fueled an earlier one.
When things go badly on the field, well …
“That’s baseball,” said Jose Altuve, surveying the state of the Astros in the wake of their 12-3 loss in Game 2. “One team has to win, and one has to lose. I don’t think (the Nationals) are going to win every game. We’re going to go out and play hard, and as soon as we start winning, we’re good.
“We’re not going to spend the whole World Series without hitting with runners (in scoring position). The next game, we’re going to go out there and get some big hits and win the game.”
“That’s baseball” was Craig Biggio’s mantra throughout his two decades in an Astros uniform, and the same deadpan cliché now seems to strike a chord with an Astros team that has been subject all season to occasional offensive misfires and has spent much of the postseason in a mother of a slump.
The Astros enter Game 3 against righthander Anibal Sanchez hitting just .216 in the postseason with an on-base percentage of .292. Carlos Correa and George Springer have combined for five homers, but are both hitting under .170 with a combined 39 strikeouts.
It is a challenging pattern, but not an unfamiliar one.
“We won our franchise record number of games, but we still had a number of losing streaks where I would sit in a chair similar to this and ask what’s wrong with this team,” manager A.J. Hinch said Thursday afternoon after arriving at Nationals Park for a late-afternoon workout.
“I think our guys are used to having questions like that with anything that’s gone wrong at all.”
And when the questions come, as they did after Game 2 on Tuesday, they answer with considerable aplomb.
“We’re not holding our heads down,” said outfielder Josh Reddick. “We had a nice, quick meeting after the game, just a players’ meeting, and talked about how we’ve been here before in 2017. We went to New York and lost three straight and didn’t let it bother us. We came back on the plane the next day and (were) jamming music, having a good damn time.
“That was one thing we really looked back on, and something I think we can build on to look forward to.”
But in that case, once again, they were coming home with a script to flip. Now they must do so on the road in a National League park, which takes the designated hitter out of the game.
And that, in turn, makes a potential key question for Game 4 whether Hinch plays Yordan Alvarez in left field or keeps him in reserve for the expanded pinch-hitting spots that come with an NL ballpark game.
“I don’t think we play all three games here without (Alvarez) seeing the outfield,” Hinch said. “I’m not sure that will be (Thursday). Right now I’m kind of leaning against it. But I’ll make that decision when I have to.”
Zack Greinke, still looking for his first playoff victory in an Astros uniform, will get the start against Sanchez. The veteran righthander has a career .225 batting average, which could play in the Astros’ favor with his bat in the lineup, but also could create quandaries for Hinch in the later innings.
“In a regular-season game you would say, ‘Hey, that helps me in that fifth and sixth inning decision when a guy can handle the bat, maybe squeeze a couple innings out of him,’ ” Hinch said. “I’ll have to determine whether that’s worth it at … that juncture of the game given that it’s a World Series game.
“I can move guys a little bit. We can hit and run. He can bunt. He’s a very, very smart baseball player. I guess we’ll see if it changes how I manage his at-bats and where we are when he gets up to bat.”
Along with the historic significance of the World Series’ return to Washington, D.C., the Astros face the daunting fact that only three teams have come back to win the World Series after losing the first two games at home, most recently the 1996 Yankees.
But Hinch on Thursday took a tone reminiscent of Kevin Millar of the Red Sox in 2004, when Boston lost the first three games of the ALCS to the Yankees. All the Sox needed was one win, Millar said, to change the storyline.
They went on to win the next four to take the pennant and, later, the World Series.
For third baseman Alex Bregman, coming off a game in which he committed two errors along with hitting a two-run homer, the preferred metaphor is more medical in tone.
“We’ve just got to do a better job. And that’s baseball,” Bregman said. “You go through stretches throughout the season where you don’t swing the bat or pitch or play defense the way you want to play it.
“I think it takes one day to stop the bleeding. You play good one game, (and) the bleeding stops. Panic stops. You start playing the way you want to play.”
Maybe the tourniquet can be a line drive that finds the gap rather than a glove, better run support for a recently beleaguered rotation, or the camaraderie built by a team meeting or even some uncharacteristic humor in the wake of a tough loss.
Justin Verlander supplied the latter Tuesday night after losing for a fifth time in six World Series starts. He waited for several dozen reporters to trudge into the clubhouse but, instead of making his usual entrance into the scrum, peered around the corner in their direction, playing an improvised game of peek-a-boo.
He smiled at the startled looks his entrance provoked.
“Little creeped out?” Verlander said. “Got ya.”
For now, at least, the Astros appear to be unfazed.