Red Sox foil Astros’ plans
Houston has another good start, but Boston roars back after Betts robs Reddick
BOSTON — For the first two games of their American League Division Series, the Houston Astros followed a simple blueprint in taking a 2-0 series lead against the Boston Red Sox: score early and let the pitching take care of the rest.
They successfully did the first part again in Game 3 Sunday, but for the first time in this series their pitching wasn’t enough to tame Boston in a 10-3 loss.
The Astros are still just one win away from their first trip to a league championship series since 2005, and arrived in Boston thinking about a sweep. That is now off the table, but the Astros aren’t deviating from doing what got them to this point.
“We try to win. That’s not changing,” manager A.J. Hinch said about potential tweaks to the game plan for Game 4 Monday. “There are no secrets between the two of us. I think we know what we’re going to get.”
Houston is set to start right hander Charlie Morton, who will be making just his second career postseason start.
Part of the reason Hinch isn’t expecting much adjustment is because the approach that earned Houston its 2-0 series lead was working again Sunday.
They again scored first, putting up three runs in the first inning, including a tworun home run by Carlos Correa — the Astros’ fourth first-inning homer of the series. It would have grown to 6-0 in the second, if not for Mookie Betts reaching over the right-field wall to take away a home run from Josh Reddick.
“It was like a knockout punch if that ball goes out,” Correa said. “But Mookie did a great job. And their team came back and put amazing at-bats together.”
But any realistic hope Houston had of getting back in the game vanished in the seventh. That’s when Jackie Bradley Jr. curled a threerun home run just inside the right-field foul pole to make it 10-3.
“Nothing you can do. You get one taken away from you and you give one right back,” Reddick said. “It’s just one of those things where it doesn’t go your way.”
Lance McCullers pitched in relief for the first time in his career and he said getting the call from the bullpen was awkward, though he said he has been trying to mentally prepare for the possibility since the playoffs began.
“We’re up 2-1 in the series, and our main focus is to win it. It doesn’t matter how it’s done,” he said.