Altuve homer in ninth sends Astros to Series
HOUSTON >> Jose Altuve hit a game-ending homer off Aroldis Chapman with two outs in the ninth inning and the Houston Astros outlasted the New York Yankees 6-4 Saturday night to advance to the World Series for the second time in three years.
In a bullpen game with a back-and-forth finish, DJ Lemahieu hit a tying, tworun shot off Astros closer Roberto Osuna in the top of the ninth. Altuve answered with a two-run drive to leftcenter, setting off a wild celebration at Minute Maid Park.
Astros ace Gerrit Cole was waiting to pitch a potential Game 7 in this AL Championship Series on Sunday. Instead, the postseason star — undefeated since May 22 — could be lined up for Game 1 at home against the NL champion Washington Nationals on Tuesday night.
NATS HAVE TIME TO REST >>Doing a little research ahead of the World Series, Washington Nationals second baseman Brian Dozier came across some numbers that made him feel OK about his team’s long layoff.
“I saw a stat today where there’s been 12 times where teams have had five or more days off going into the World Series. And you know what the record was? 6-6,” Dozier said. “So it’s not that big a deal.”
Baseball is a sport that is more of a daily grind than any other, with game followed by game followed by game for six months, so this stretch is rather unusual for the Nationals: They haven’t played since finishing off a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Championship Series at home last Tuesday — and they won’t play until Game 1 of the Fall Classic on the road Tuesday at Houston.
The good news for the Nationals is that their pitchers get to recharge and they can set up their rotation exactly how they want. The flip side is that their hitters might not be sharp when play resumes.
“Baseball season’s kind of uncomfortable. Your body’s kind of under constant fire,” right fielder Adam Eaton said. “And when you get a breath of fresh air, sometimes it has a tendency to relax a little bit.”
Reliever Sean Doolittle used the down time to catch up on laundry, finish reading a book he’d set aside for a while (“Parable of the Talents” by Octavia E. Butler) and head to a bookstore to find a new one.
“One thing I didn’t know about getting this far in the postseason is it’s emotionally exhausting. It just felt good to have nothing on our plate and just recover a little bit,” Doolittle said.