Astros take Game 5 in 10th
Outlast Dodgers in 5-plus hours to take Series lead
HOUSTON — Alex Bregman hit a game-ending single off Kenley Jansen with two outs in the 10th inning, and the Houston Astros outslugged the Los Angeles Dodgers, 13-12, Sunday night to take a 3-2 World Series lead.
Silent early when ace Dallas Keuchel allowed Los Angeles to spurt ahead, 4-0, the crowd erupted over and over as the Astros sent balls careening all around — and out of — pulsating Minute Maid Park.
Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Yuli Gurriel, George Springer and Brian McCann homered for Houston, which tied the score, 44, against Clayton Kershaw, fell behind, 7-4, on Cody Bellinger’s three-run homer, then rallied again to lead, 11-8, after seven innings and 12-9 after eight.
Yasiel Puig’s two-run homer in the ninth off Chris Devenski was the record 22nd of the Series, and Chris Taylor tied the score with a two-out, two-strike RBI single.
Jensen hit McCann with a pitch with two outs, George Springer walked and Derek Fisher pinch-ran for Bregman at second. Bregman won the 5-hour, 17-minute marathon with a liner into left field.
Joe Musgrove, Houston’s seventh pitcher, threw a scoreless 10th for the win.
Game 6 is Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, where Justin Verlander will try to clinch the Astros’ first championship and Rich Hill hopes to save the Dodgers’ season.
• Verlander is convinced: Baseballs are slicker. Hill isn’t so sure. With home runs soaring to record levels in the regular season and the World Series, juiced balls are on pitchers’ minds.
“The main complaint is that the balls seem a little bit different in the postseason, and even from the postseason to the World Series balls,” Verlander said Sunday, two days ahead of his start for the Houston Astros in Game 6 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. “They’re a little slick. You just deal with it. But I don’t think it’s the case of one pitcher saying, ‘Hey, something is different here.’ I think as a whole, everybody is saying, ‘Whoa, something is a little off here.’”
Fifteen home runs were hit as the Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers split the first four games. That includes a record eight in Game 2 — five of them in extra innings.
The record for a six-game series is 17 in 1953, 1977 and 2009. The overall mark of 21 was set by Anaheim and San Francisco over seven games in 2002 — the season before survey drug testing.
Speculation that some thing is a miss has been fueled by a study claiming to have found differences in the size and seam height of balls since the2015 All-Star break.
“I know there was talk about different sizes and some of the baseballs were slightly bigger and some were smaller. Some of the seams were higher, some of the seams were lower. But, no, it’s been consistent,” said Hill, who will start Game 6 for the Dodgers. “I think that just has to do with conditions — if it’s colder it’s going to be slicker. If it’s a little bit warmer out or humid, I think you’re going to find that you’re going to have a little bit more of moisture to the baseballs.”
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred insists nothing nefarious is going on.
“I’m absolutely confident that the balls that we’re using are within our established specifications,” he said Friday.