SHOT ON LOCATION
George Springer’s rocket into the L.A. night evened it at 1-1 and gave the Astros their first World Series win
LOS ANGELES — It was blasted toward right field at 9:15 p.m. local time.
The ball that rocketed off George Springer’s bat just kept lifting and rising and flying. And then it was just gone. The biggest home run in Astros history. The biggest hit in Astros history. And the first World Series win in Astros history, all in one beautiful, forever-lasting moment.
A.J. Hinch backed his player. Then Springer had his manager’s back in Game 2, powering the Astros to a 7-6 absolutely had to have it 11-inning victory Wednesday night at stunned Dodger Stadium.
“(Springer is) an incredible player . ... You’ve got to believe in what these guys can do,” said Hinch, after a heart stopper and near heart breaker finally end up in the Astros’ electric hands.
Ex-Astro Enrique Hernandez made baseball Hollywood shake in the 10th, when his old team nearly blew it. Then Springer ripped up the script and wrote his own October story. ‘Craziest game’
The Astros were big and grand enough for this stage. And they crushed four huge, series-changing home runs — Marwin Gonzalez, Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa, Springer — just in time to fly back to Houston with a 1-1 series tie.
“That’s the craziest game I’ve ever played,” Springer said.
My lord, what a night. And no matter what happens in the rest of this already-crazy series, we’ll be poring over Game 2 for a long, long time. It was over. Then it was not. It was over again. Then it was not. Magic. Hollywood. Houston’s Astros. From Hinch’s team down 3-1 entering the eighth to up 5-3 in the 10th to on to the 11th in a World Series battle that kept turning and changing and for a while Wednesday night just absolutely refused to die.
All that was on the line: 2-0 Dodgers in the World Series or 1-1 Astros, with Houston’s ball club returning home with a new jolt of life and three consecutive games back at roaring Minute Maid Park.
“We’re going to stay believing and try to win Friday night (in Game 3),” Hinch said.
They were the franchise that still hadn’t won a World Series game.
Then Altuve went deep, Correa followed — tossing in the biggest bat flip in Astros history — and two gigantic home runs 56 years in the making suddenly made it 5-3 road team.
“These players don’t quit. … We’re chasing something that for your whole lifetime seems unattainable,” Hinch said.
Dreams are made of this. Seasons are ended and broken.
Four pitches, four swings … and the World Series changes.
“They fight to the last out,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “They play 27 outs and that’s the same thing we do.” Back-to-back blasts
Gonzalez kept the Astros alive. Altuve brought an “MVP” chant all the way to Dodger Stadium. And when Correa followed his close friend with another solo blast into the L.A. night, Hinch’s oh-so-resilient Astros were about to pull it off again.
Down 3-2 to New York and staring at elimination in the American League Championship Series. Owning the next two games, and breathing life back into a season that for so long seemed ready-made for the Fall Classic.
Down 3-1 to Los Angeles in Game 2 in the eighth. Then 5-3 after three solo bombs — all liners that just kept flying and flying — with Springer’s beautiful shot still to come.
They finally showed us something in the eighth.
Six outs away from flying home staring at an 0-2 hole, Alex Bregman led off with a double floated down the right-field line. A hole in Yasiel Puig’s glove helped push Bregman to second. And when Correa bounced a Kenley Jansen offering up the middle, the Astros had their third run of the World Series and were just one more away from suddenly tying it and stunning Los Angeles.
Yuli Gurriel and Brian McCann were soon silenced, though, and the Astros were down to three.
Roberts stuck with Jansen. Do-everything Gonzalez answered by homering to left-center field on the third pitch he saw, rocketing a 94 mph cutter.
Tie game. Dodgers 2-0 in the World Series instantly on hold. But then it was tied again. Until Springer — the Astros’ season-long igniter — returned to the box.
Brandon McCarthy threw an 88 mph slider. Then Springer, the man who went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts in Game 1, blasted a shot to right field that changed this World Series and instantly altered the Astros’ history.