Astros got their groove back thanks to increase in intensity
WASHINGTON — Nearly half the room was filled with champions. Their rings, each studded with 25 natural sapphires and 214 diamonds, from 2017 still glimmered, if not in lock boxes, certainly in memories. They knew better than to feel as shaken as they had looked coming off the Minute Maid Park field last week. They were beleaguered from an embarrassing Game 2 loss that frittered away home-field advantage and put them down 2-0 in the World Series to the chest-pounding Washington Nationals, who were playing more like the Astros had two years ago.
Starter Justin Verlander and second baseman Jose Altuve — pillars of Houston’s title run and boosters for a love literally too effusive among teammates to contain behind clubhouse doors — refocused the crew with a players-only meeting before the team flew to Washington, D.C.
A steady gulf stream of self-belief restored the Astros on their flight east, but something still was missing when they landed. They did not yet feel like themselves. The boys on the sandlot needed to come out and play.
With the airport and some baseball baggage left behind, Carlos Correa explained the problem to Altuve.
“Jose,” he said, “we need to get our swagger back.”
Sure, the Astros had highlights, hits and homers, but the shortstop wanted exclamation points.
“We’re not even getting hyped up,” Correa went on, according to his own retelling. “We’re scoring runs, and it feels like a regular game. This is the World Series.”
Correa is an authority on Millennial swagger. It’s not the kind that’s connoted by Joe Namath’s mink coat, Muhammad Ali’s trash talk or Kobe Bryant’s murderous glare. Correa plays the way Salsa music feels. Bang the conga. Blare the trumpets. Flap your arms like a hummingbird in courtship, the way Correa did when he homered in Game 5 of the 2017 World Series (and would be outdone when the Dodgers’ trolling showman Yasiel Puig
gently laid his lumber on the dirt to celebrate a two-run dinger).
Verlander and Altuve are Houston’s grinders. Correa and third baseman Alex Bregman are the peacocks flourishing a “loud” style that their 150-yearold sport is promoting this October.
“Let’s get our swagger back,” Correa concluded. “Let’s play hard. Let’s play with passion. Let’s play like we want it.”
Correa and The Family Stone stopped letting their demeanor and victories get caught up in a chicken-or-the-egg debate. Wins did not have to dictate grins.
A 50-hour flouncing began on Friday. The Astros bat-flipped walks. They stared into their dugout before reaching first base on singles. They threw fêtes in the first innings.
It all worked. Swagger begat swagger. They danced their way to a weekend sweep to take a 3-2 in the Series.
“I love our feel for the moment and feel for this team,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “Everybody talks about culture and chemistry, and when you have it, you love it. When you see it on the other side, you’re envious of it.”
Bregman sauntered on Saturday while holding his bat like it were a handrail in order to aggrandize his grand slam. Astros starter Jose Urquidy, who’d been a fringe candidate to make the postseason roster, shut the Nationals out for five innings in just the 12th appearance of his major league career.
“The best performance from our pitching staff in this World Series,” Correa said of Urquidy. “Young guy, Double-A, and then he’s pitching in the World Series, calm, collected, no pressure, just pounding the strike zone against a great lineup like the Nats. That was impressive. That was so much fun to watch. It was really fun to play behind him.”
On Sunday, Correa led more of the fun. Nodding and hyping up Altuve, he shuffled backward on a glide to the dugout following their double play in the second inning, which kept starter Gerrit Cole trundling for another five.
“We’re just going to kind of put one foot in front of the next, respond to the challenges that come our way, and you shower off the mistakes,” Cole said, before mentioning the most important part. “And celebrate the amazing plays.”
The Astros barely could contain their giddiness when Yordan Álvarez, making his first start in left field in nearly two months, caught a screaming line drive that usually is a hit 90 percent of the time. Then Correa, like Bregman, walked the line to ease into a home run trot, garnishing it with a pinch of his helmet brim as he rounded second.
Correa sucked up the oxygen he saw leaking out of the Nationals. He homered after emergency starter Joe Ross, who filled in for a scratched Max Scherzer, had not gotten a strike three call on a borderline curveball.
“I could see on his face that he really wanted that pitch,” Correa said. “He was able to make a mistake, and I took advantage to that one.”
The Astros got going in Game 3, cocksure in Game 4 and monstrous in Game 5. They loudly silenced the record crowds at Nationals Park. They outscored the Nationals 19-3 — 13 of their runs coming on homers.
“This last three games we really played like we want this championship,” Correa said.
With one more win, these Astros can accomplish what the magical 2017 team could not: they can clinch the title at home.
Correa went wide-eyed at the thought. A goofy, genuine smile stretched across his face.
“If we win in front of our fans, it’s just going to be so special,” he said. “I think I’ll black out for the first time in my life.”