Booming bats bring fast start to series
16-hit attack shows offense, swagger are back in full supply
LOS ANGELES — Carlos Correa asked for the noise. Ballparks cannot provide it in a pandemic, but it arrived nonetheless. Outsiders, naysayers, anyone around the sport who does not want the villainous Astros anywhere near Arlington, Texas in late October chime in at will.
Houston’s pedestrian 60-game regular season allowed for an abundance of abuse, be it via social media or, here in September, a gathering of trash-can banging Los Angeleans with nothing else to do. Josh Reddick wondered this week why more malice-filled fellows didn’t show up. After Houston’s wild card sweep of the Twins, Correa asked what the baseball world “is going to say now.”
Answers filled every crack and crevice of the Internet. The Astros delivered their counter on Monday. They trounced the Oakland A’s 10-5 to take Game 1 of the American League Division Series at Dodger Stadium, beginning an attempt to reassert division supremacy.
“I love October baseball,” Correa said. “I want to be in there. I want to be in tough spots, in decisive situations. I prepare myself every single day mentally for when that time comes. October baseball, the energy is just different.”
Houston struck 16 hits, the most allowed by Oakland’s prolific pitching staff all season. Correa crushed two home runs. George Springer supplied a four-hit day. Jose Altuve’s two-run single in the sixth gave the team a lead it did not relinquish. Houston’s bullpen tossed five hitless innings in relief.
Correa, Altuve and Springer each played their 53rd playoff game on Monday. It looked so much like many that preceded it, a relentless carousel of crushing blows, excellent at-bats by the entire lineup and a tangible happiness that just wasn’t around for most of the last three months.
“We just slowed it down finally,” Springer said. “We really, really slowed the game down and un-
derstood this is the playoffs and you don’t know if you’re ever going to get back here or not, so you might as well enjoy it.”
Every starter reached base. Only two did not reach scoring position. An early three-run deficit did not matter. Past performance against the A’s meant little. Houston lost seven of 10 regular-season games against the A’s, stopping a streak of three consecutive American League West titles.
These appeared closer to those Astros teams, a swagger-filled group that captured a championship three years ago inside this ballpark and surged to superteam status with the largest payroll in franchise history. Where they’ve been for the past four months matters not. The club is clicking at the most meaningful time.
“Seeing the guys the way that they had at-bats today were crazy impressive,” starter Lance McCullers Jr. said. “When you see our guys and they start to feel dangerous and look dangerous in that box, like they did today, is when you start to have a lot of confidence.”
Hope felt far away in the sixth. Two were out and the Astros trailed by two. A’s manager Bob Melvin had unleashed his terrifying bullpen. Houston faced A’s relievers for 28⅔ regular-season innings. It scored two earned runs.
The A’s bullpen awoke Monday with baseball’s lowest earned-run average and third-lowest batting average on balls in play. But the Astros collected seven hits and scored seven times against it.
“I just liked the way that all of us fought,” Springer said. “We passed the baton onto the next guy, had three or four quality atbats in a row.”
Correa has now hit three mammoth home runs in three postseason games. Both on Monday landed in dead center field. After each, as he rounded third base, he looked toward the opposing dugout, cupped his hand to his ear and invited any more noise.
“All we can control is what happens inside this clubhouse,” Correa said. “We’re having fun. We’re having a great time. We’re playing great baseball right now and we want to keep it that way. We love each other in this clubhouse. We got each other’s back.”