DO OR DIE FOR ASTROS
World Series comes down to Game 7 as nerve-wracking evening continues the streak of losses by the home team
In this off-kilter season of home-field disadvantage, the Astros and Nationals will play a deciding Game 7 of the 2019 World Series on Wednesday night at Minute Maid Park.
The Nationals forced the best-of-seven series to the brink Tuesday night with a 7-2 Game 6 win over the Astros before 43,384 in downtown Houston, continuing a World Series that has injected a singular element of historic unpredictability into baseball’s 150th anniversary season.
Washington third baseman Anthony Rendon, the former Lamar High School and Rice University standout, drove in five runs, and righthander Stephen Strasburg allowed two runs in the first inning, including a solo homer by Alex Bregman, but was dominant thereafter amid the cauldron of an elimination game for the Nationals.
With Washington’s win, the madness continues: Through six games, neither team has won at home — three wins for the Nationals at Minute Maid, three wins for the Astros over the weekend at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C.
“Doesn't look like there is (a home-field advantage) right now, but I hope there's one (for Game 7),” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch. “We're waiting until the last game to have it on our side.
“We worked really hard to get home field, and we're happy to play at home. We have no problem playing at home. This place will be rocking.”
It will reverberate to the sounds and sights of Game 7, the most eagerly anticipated event of any season for the unaffiliated observer, the most nerve-wracking evening of a partisan fan’s existence, the
grandest stage for an athlete to cement his stature for good or ill.
“We have a great opportunity to play a home game, Game 7 of the World Series,” Hinch said. “Maybe not how we drew it up in terms of how we got there, but it doesn't take away the opportunity we have to win the World Series.”
Righthander Max Scherzer, who missed his scheduled Game 5 start in Washington because of nerve issues in his back and shoulder, will start for the Nationals.
“Any time we’ve got Max on the mound, we like our chances,” said Rendon.
Zack Greinke, acquired by the Astros at the trade deadline as the third spoke of a potential championship rotation with Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole, will start for Houston.
“(I’ll) just try to do good,” Greinke said. “That’s kind of just what I do is just make pitches, and that gives us the best chance.
“(The Nationals) have some good hitters — not a lot of holes, not a lot of strikeouts.”
Washington forced Game 7 by again getting to Justin Verlander, the veteran Astros righthander who for all his regular-season accolades has come up empty in seven World Series starts.
Tagged with the loss in the Nationals’ 12-3 Game 2 victory, Verlander allowed five hits with three runs and three strikeouts in five innings. He also suffered the loss two years ago in Game 6 of the Astros-Dodgers World Series, forcing a Game 7 that the Astros won for their first title.
Verlander was granted a 2-1 lead after the first on Jose Altuve’s sacrifice fly and Bregman’s homer but surrendered a run in the first and two in the fifth on homers by Adam Eaton and Juan Soto, the latter a 413foot blast to the upper deck in right field.
Rendon’s homer came after a 4½-minute delay following a disputed call on whether Washington’s Trea Turner interfered with a throw to first by pitcher Brad Peacock on a dribbler to the third base side of the infield.
The game was delayed while the Nationals informed Major League Baseball that it was being played under protest. When play was resumed, Rendon took Harris’ first pitch into the Crawford Boxes to give the Nationals a three-run lead.
After the inning, Nationals manager Dave Martinez was ejected following an on-field confrontation with umpires.
Strasburg, the Nationals’ last line of defense, was dominant after the first, giving up five hits with seven strikeouts in 81⁄3 innings.
And Rendon, in his return to Houston, was lethal, with three hits in four at-bats plus a walk and the five RBIs.
“We were just trying to be aggressive in the zone, kind of the same approach that we've tried to have all season — try not to fish too much at baseballs, at sliders in dirt, off-speeds or whatever it might be,” Rendon said.
“If we try to stay within ourselves and try to swing at pitches that we can put a good swing on and not give in, not give in any strikes, I think that we could try to knock around any pitcher. And we just happened to get to (Verlander) a little bit today.”
And thus, the home-field disadvantage continues. The Astros’ inability to put away the Nationals thus far at Minute Maid is particularly atypical considering their 60-21 regular-season record, the best in baseball and 12 games better than the major league average.
They won all three home games to beat the Tampa Bay Rays in the five-game Division Series and took two of three at Minute Maid in their six-game American League Championship Series win over the Yankees.
But good teams win on the road. The Nationals were 50-31 at Nationals Park, and the Astros limited them to one run in each of their three weekend games at the National League venue, winning 4-1, 8-1 and 7-1.
The Nationals’ ability to force Game 7 reflects a counterpuncher’s personality that has been evident since earlier this year, when Washington slumped to 1931 before beginning a sudden, steady rise to finish 93-69.
The Nationals then took a comeback win over the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League wild card game, staged a two-game comeback against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Division Series and a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals for the National League pennant.
Their presence in Game 7, then, is no surprise.
With the road team now holding a 43-12 scoring edge in the six games, the Astros have one final chance to win one for the home team — either home team.
“This series has been very weird,” Hinch said. “If I had told you the series was going to be 3-3 going to a Game 7, I don't think there's a person in the building that would have assumed that all road teams were going to win.
“We've just got to make sure that last one is not the same.”
Under any circumstances, baseball’s sesquicentennial season will come to an end on the day before Halloween.
It’s Game 7. Gird your loins.