In the baseball You can never take anything for granted, but everything seems to indicate that we will have several days without Major League games until the start of the World Series next Friday, October 28. The culprits of the forced pause in the middle of the postseason must be the Houston Astros and the Philadelphia Phillies, determined to bury their rivals in the Championship Series as soon as this Sunday.
This Saturday, the Astros stormed Yankee Stadium and defeated (5-0) for the third consecutive duel the Bronx Bombers, who have gotten all the gunpowder wet. Aaron Boone’s boys have given up 81 outs in their duel with Houston, and 41 of them have been through strikes.
The Yankees have not been able to put the ball in play and add just four runs in 27 innings. His offensive line is .128/.212/.223 in 104 at-bats, with just 12 hits and five extra-base hits. That negligible production has completely annulled his chances of victory against a compact opponent with multiple virtues to get ahead in a ball game.
For example, in the third game of the American League Championship Series, the Astros relied on another great pitching performance by Dominican Cristian Javier at Yankee Stadium. Right on that stage he gave a no hitter combined at the end of last June, and now continued in a similar vein.
Javier worked 5.1 innings without allowing annotations and with only one hit on his account this Saturday, so he now has 12.1 shutout chapters at Yankee Stadium, where he also has 18 strikeouts.
His work gave wings to Houston, who in the second inning took advantage of a Harrison Bader fielding error and took the lead on the board. With two out, Christian Vazquez hit a routine fly ball to right-center field that Bader botched in a mix-up with Aaron Judge. That shot was the end of a quiet inning for Gerrit Cole, but when Vázquez was left alive, the Yankees starter suffered the fury of Chas McCormick.
The Astros outfielder hooked a 98-mile fastball and sent it flying over the right sideline fences, 335 feet from the rubber. This was McCormick’s second home run in his postseason history, both against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series.
Those two runs would have been enough for Houston, but in the sixth they went through the register three more times to sink the pride of the New York crowd. Alex Bregman’s double, Kyle Tucker’s walk, Yulieski Gurriel’s single, Trey Mancini’s sacrifice fly and Christian Vázquez’s hit certified the Bombers’ debacle.
By the way, that sixth inning showed us again the ability of Gurriel, who has been one of the most recurrent names in the Astros’ victories in October. The man from Sancti Spiritus reached 80 hits in play off and then made a spectacular run from second base to get his team’s fifth run. In this way, he totals 30 runs scored in his postseason history.
Since 2017, the campaign in which Yulieski made his debut in playoffs, the Cuban is the second player with the most hits in that instance, only surpassed by José Altuve (89), and is one of the nine players with at least 30 runs scored. Almost nothing for a man that many assured could not succeed in the Major Leagues after 33 years.
With Saturday’s victory, Houston took a 3-0 lead against the Yankees, a privileged position to advance to its fourth World Series in the last six seasons. According to ESPN Stats & Info, teams that took a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven postseason matchup have ended up winning that matchup 97.4% of the time (38-1).
The only time a team has come back from that deficit was in the 2004 American League Championship Series, when Boston came from behind in spectacular fashion against the Yankees. Under the current circumstances, it seems totally unlikely that history will repeat itself.
The Phillies are one step away from returning to the Fall Classic
Before the start of the National League Championship Series, we had one thing very clear: the bullpen would be essential to the success of each team. The past two World Series champions have won the World Series with more innings from their relievers than from their starters. Why should this year be any different?
The amazing thing is that neither the Padres nor the Phillies had good relief pitching in the regular season, but they’ve somehow improved it this postseason to get here. Game four of the ALCS was a bullpen battle between the two bullpens, with Philadelphia’s ultimately looking better to hold out for a 10-6 win.
The team that seemed eliminated in early June is one win away from reaching the biggest stage in baseball. If he succeeds, he will do so with an unprecedented philosophy. The Detroit Tigers got to a World Series thanks to a fearful offense, amazing starting pitching and a shaky defense. A decade later, the Phillies are one step away from doing the same. In both cases, the protagonist has been Dave Dombrowski.
Last offseason, the Phillies’ president of basketball operations opted to sign Nick Castellanos and Kyle Schwarber. The idea was clear: create one of the best lineups in baseball. Seven months later, Dombrowski boasts the best offense of the postseason.
What we saw in the game this Saturday was a hitting show. The first five men in the Phillies’ lineup combined for nine hits in 18 at-bats, with nine RBIs, three doubles and four home runs. Castellanos, Schwarber, Harper and Rhys Hoskins each had two hits.
Philadelphia’s four homers equal their most in a game. play off. Previously, they had done it in the fourth game of the Division Series in 2008 (vs. Brewers), then, in the fourth game of the World Series that same year (vs. Rays) and, finally, in the fifth game of the Series of Championship in 2009 (vs. Dodgers).
There are two things that impress me about these Phillies and the first is that they don’t give up. In the opening game of the Wild Card Series against the Cardinals, they trailed by two runs in the ninth inning, and managed to rally with a six-run rally for victory. Yesterday they were losing 4-0 and managed to level the score, and later they would come back from a 6-4 score.
The other thing is hitting against fast pitches. In the regular season they were the sixth-best slugging team against fast pitches (.422), at the same time, they had the sixth-highest number of homers against fastballs. They did that with their best hitter (Harper) spending two months on the disabled list.
Now Harper is here and the offense has hit 13 of his 14 homers against fast pitches. The reigning NL MVP has four of them. Before yesterday’s session, only the Astros (.423) had a better slugging percentage against fastballs than the Phillies (.401) in these play offyes
This Saturday, nine of the 11 hits that the set of the bell got were against fastballs, and some of them led to the tie or the advantage. Let’s look at a timeline:
* First inning: Hoskins on a 3-2 count hits a home run vs. Mike Clevinger sinker (94.2 miles). He put the game 4-2
* Fourth inning: Bryson Stott on a 1-1 count singles to left vs. Sean Manaea sinker (95.8 miles). tied the game 4-4
* Fifth inning: Hoskins on a 1-1 count hits a home run vs. Sean Manaea sinker (94.3 miles). tied the game 6-6
* Fifth inning: Harper on a 1-2 count hits a double to central vs. Sean Manaea’s sinker (94.6 miles). He came back 7-6.
* Sixth inning: Schwarber on a 2-1 count connects a home run vs. Luis García’s sinker (98.2 miles). Increased lead to 9-6
Another key for the Phillies to win was pitching management. For the second night in a row, things went well for Rob Thomson. This time, he had to maneuver from the first inning as rookie Bailey Falter exploded with 24 pitches. Trailing 3-0, he craned it to bring in Connor Brogdon.
The Philadelphia reliever combined to pitch 8 1/3 innings of two runs and five hits, with eight strikeouts and one walk. Noah Syndergaard and David Robertson, two players Dombroswki got at the trade deadline, had three scoreless innings. Starter-turned-reliever Zach Eflin retired the ninth inning of one-two-three and hasn’t allowed a score in four of the six games he’s pitched in these playoffs.
The Phillies will try to break a 12-year drought without reaching the World Series, perhaps they will do so on the same day that the Yankees, the team that won that Fall Classic, are eliminated by the Astros. The scene is set: they are at home and with one of their aces on the mound, Zack Wheeler, and they will also have Seranthony Domínguez and José Alvarado rested. The panorama cannot be better.
