Red Sox storm ahead in ALCS, and Astros are suddenly facing unexpected trouble

HOUSTON — The Houston Astros had put themselves through something close to organizational hell to get to the point where they could hand the ball to Roberto Osuna in the late innings of a one-run game in October. They saw their clubhouse cleaved, at least initially, by the controversial trade that brought him to Houston in July. They were blasted by the national media. They endured merciless treatment from fans on the road. But in their own calculation, it would all be worth it if Osuna delivered the biggest outs in October’s biggest moments.

What happened Tuesday night at Minute Maid Park with Osuna on the mound, then, will be seen by some as karma, by some as a giant choke-job in a high-pressure situation and by fans of the Boston Red Sox as one more sign their team — the best in baseball all season, if not a decade or more — is on its way to baseball’s ultimate prize a couple of weeks down the road.

Had Boston’s 8-2 victory in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series pivoted on any other inning than the one Osuna started, it would have been a neat and tidy example of a tight game broken open in the top of the eighth with one mammoth swing of the bat — that being Jackie Bradley Jr.’s towering drive to right field for a grand slam.

But because Bradley’s blast came off Osuna, and because Osuna was acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays while still serving a 75-game suspension for an alleged domestic violence incident, and because the Astros made that trade knowing full well there was only one outcome in which it would be deemed a success — and this outcome wasn’t that — that eighth-inning collapse, should the Astros bow out in this series, could come to define their season.

Bradley’s grand slam off Osuna followed a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch of pinch hitter Mitch Moreland, which followed another hit-by-pitch of pinch hitter Brock Holt. Both errant pitches came with two strikes and two outs, and the Astros trailing by a run, as Osuna was tantalizingly close to escaping his messy inning.

Thanks to a combination of the three-game sweep of the Cleveland Indians in the division series and the lack of save situations in Games 1 and 2, Osuna, installed as the Astros’ closer soon after the trade, hadn’t pitched in 10 days. Though this wasn’t a save situation either, it was a high-leverage inning in a 3-2 game, with the Astros confident in their chances of tying or winning the game in two more chances against the faulty Red Sox bullpen.

We will never know whether the Astros would have squeezed home that equalizer in the eighth or ninth, or gone ahead. All we know is their season is now hanging on by a thin ribbon as they trail the Red Sox two games to one with Game 4 on Wednesday night.

The Astros’ loss was just their second in 12 postseason games at Minute Maid Park since the start of last October, a stretch that saw them win the franchise’s first World Series title on the first night of November. The 43,102 fans who jammed into the stadium Tuesday night could have been forgiven for thinking they were there merely as witnesses to another step in a month-long coronation. If anything, this year’s Astros team appeared to be even better than last year’s champions.

For much of Tuesday night, the game was like some throwback from the distant past, like maybe 2011, one in which the strikeouts were few, flyballs stayed mostly in the park, and the ball was constantly in play. As such, it was also a game that pivoted largely on defensive plays, those made and those not. Most of them went the Astros’ way.

There was left fielder Tony Kemp’s leaping snag of a flyball at the wall in the third, saving at least one run, possibly two. Though the Red Sox challenged the call, and internet sleuths got busy making GIFs that suggested the ball had scraped the wall on the way down, the call stood.

There was the bouncer down the third base line off the bat of Astros star Alex Bregman in the fifth, off Red Sox starter Nathan Eovaldi, that snuck under the glove of Rafael Devers — a makeable play that instead became an RBI double.

And there were the series of dazzling defensive plays Bregman made at third himself — one of the diving variety, one a charging scoop-and-throw on the run, one a backhanded play down the line and an off-balance throw to second.

Though the Astros trailed for most of the game, everything was heading right where they wanted it to go. They had coaxed five innings out of starter Dallas Keuchel, and possessed the better bullpen. They had no fear at all of Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel, who was poised to pitch the ninth with a one-run lead until the eighth-inning outburst made his usage unnecessary.

While the perception of the Astros is of a team that won a World Series title in 2017 and managed to get even better in 2018, that is almost entirely because of a handful of pitching acquisitions — starter Gerrit Cole and relievers Osuna and Ryan Pressly, all of whom have performed spectacularly since their arrivals. But the fact is, the Astros’ offense is far from the one that led the majors in runs and on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 2017.

Semi-obscured by the emergence of Bregman as a bona fide superstar is the fact almost every other significant member of the Astros’ lineup fell off precipitously this season. Jose Altuve was down 120 points of OPS from his 2017 MVP-award-winning numbers. Carlos Correa, hobbled by back and oblique injuries, was down a whopping 213 points. George Springer was down 109 points, Josh Reddick by 125, Marwin Gonzalez by 174, Brian McCann by 119 and Yuli Gurriel by 66. As a result, the Astros slipped to sixth in the majors in runs and seventh in OPS.

The Astros still won 103 games and still swept the Indians, but against the 108-win Red Sox, they are struggling to get on track. And yet, they were still poised to storm back Tuesday night, and it was all right in their grasp — right up until the moment Osuna jogged onto the field, to nary a discernible boo from the crowd, then imploded in full sight of everyone. The only question left is whether he took the Astros’ season down with him.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Read Again https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/red-sox-storm-ahead-in-alcs-and-astros-are-suddenly-facing-unexpected-trouble/2018/10/16/7bc19264-d16a-11e8-8c22-fa2ef74bd6d6_story.html

Bagikan Berita Ini