Astros on brink of history
Game 6 victory gets Houston within win of overcoming 3-0 deficit
George Springer and Jose Altuve delivered big hits, Framber Valdez pitched six brilliant innings and the Houston Astros beat the Tampa Bay Rays for the third straight time, 7-4 Friday to force a deciding Game 7 of the AL Championship Series.
Houston chased starter Blake Snell in the fifth before Springer hit a go-ahead, two-run single and scored on Altuve’s double. Carlos Correa, who hit a walk-off home run in Thursday night’s 4-3 win, added an RBI single.
The Astros are one win away from their third World Series in four seasons and joining the 2004 Boston Red Sox as the only teams to rally from a 3-0 deficit to win a seven-game series. The Red Sox stunned the New York Yankees to win the ALCS before winning their first World Series in 86 seasons.
Otherwise, big league clubs leading 3-0 in a best-of-seven postseason series are 37-1.
Houston also is trying to become the first team to win a pennant with a losing regular season record (29-31). The Astros have been criticized for their role in a cheating scandal en route to the 2017 title that was uncovered last offseason.
“We’re not through writing history,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “We’re hoping we can have a happy ending to this historic season and historic year.”
“This team’s battled back big time,” he added. “You’ve got to love this team, or some people hate this team, but I mean you’ve at least got to respect this team, the way that they’ve worked.”
Manuel Margot homered twice and drove in three runs for the Rays. Despite blowing a 3-0 series lead, they remain one win away from the second World Series in franchise histo
ry — and one loss from joining the 2004 Yankees in ignominy.
Game 7 on Saturday night will feature the pitchers who started and finished Houston’s Game 7 win against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2017 World Series. Lance McCullers Jr. will go for the Astros while 36-year-old Charlie Morton is expected to start for the Rays.
In the decisive Game 7 in 2017, Mccullers started and went 21⁄ scoreless
3 innings while Morton pitched the final four innings for the victory. Morton signed with Tampa Bay prior to the 2019 season.
“We’ve just got to bounce back,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “This isn’t the scenario that we wanted leading 3-0, but this is a resilient group.”
Valdez, who lost the opener of this series 2-1 to Snell, held the Astros to one run and three hits while striking out nine and walking three in his third career postseason start. He allowed Willy Adames’ RBI double in the second.
Astros closer Ryan Pressly pitched for the third straight day and got three outs for his second save to go with a win in Game 5. He allowed Yoshitomo Tsutsugo’s one-out single, then induced Mike Brosseau’s game-ending double-play grounder.
The 71-year-old Baker, who led NL teams for the first 22 seasons of his 23-year managerial career, used some old-school baseball to outfox his younger counterpart, 42-year-old Cash, to overturn a 1-0 deficit in the fifth. The rally had only one hard-hit ball. The Astros had been frustrated in the first three games when they scalded balls right to fielders.
Snell walked Yuli Gurriel opening the fifth and allowed a single to Aledmys Diaz on his 82nd pitch. Cash, whose team was built around analytics, pulled Snell before he could face the No. 9 batter, catcher Martin Maldonado, and leadoff hitter Springer, who had struck out twice.
Maldonado laid down a sacrifice bunt against Diego Castillo and Springer punched a two-run single to center through a hole in Tampa Bay’s drawn-in infield that was also in a shift. Altuve followed with a double into the left-field corner that brought in Springer, who might have been out if Brandon Lowe had thrown to the cutoff man instead of second base.
After Michael Brantley walked, Correa singled to left to bring in Altuve.