Astros’ Gonzalez runs into a wall: Boston’s Green Monster

BOSTON — Fenway Park’s Green Monster looks like a benign ogre from a distance. Its rich green hue and charming old-fashioned scoreboard mask the fact that it is a 37-foot left-field wall that will leave its mark if you are an outfielder who has just crashed into it.

Which is just what happened in the bottom of the third inning of Game 2 on Sunday night when Houston Astros left fielder Marwin Gonzalez hit the Green Monster while trying, and failing, to catch a drive off the bat of Boston’s Steve Pearce.

After the game, Gonzalez was able to summon a laugh as he described what had happened. ‘‘I know it’s hard,’’ he said of the wall, ‘‘because I just hit it.’’

Gonzalez was knocked down — but not out — by the collision, with the ball hit by Pearce bouncing off his glove. It was a key play in the game, leaving Red Sox with runners on second and third with one out and setting up the rally that allowed them to take the lead for good in the game, which they won Astros left fielder Marwin Gonzalez is attended to after crashing in to the Green Monster in Fenway Park during Game 2 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday.

7-5 to pull even at 1-1 in the American League Championship Series.

‘‘I was pretty scared,’’ Gonzalez said of the moments after the collision. ‘‘I was dizzy for the rest of the inning, and it was really painful in my chest, too.’’

Gonzalez appeared to wage his own personal battle with the Green Monster on Sunday night. In the top of the third inning, Gonzalez handed the Astros a 4-2 lead by smashing a two-run homer far

above the wall.

But after he could not hang on to Pearce’s drive, and finally got back on his feet, Rafael Devers walked to load the bases. One out later, Jackie Bradley Jr. lifted a fastball from Gerrit Cole down the leftfield line. The ball hit off the Green Monster, about halfway up, then bounced along the adjacent wall that hugs the line as Gonzalez chased after it and finally picked it up.

By then all three runners had scored,

giving the Red Sox a 5-4 lead they wouldn’t surrender.

Red Sox ace Chris Sale was released from Massachusetts General Hospital on Monday and will rejoin the team in Houston before Game 3 of the ALCS on Tuesday. He was hospitalized for observation with a stomach illness early Sunday morning after he pitched in the series opener on Saturday.