HOUSTON – Minutes before first pitch, the Astros weren’t sure whether Yordan Alvarez would play. He couldn’t hold back food for two days. He had a headache. He didn’t sleep. And yet he insisted on remaining on the roster for Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.
“He insisted,” manager Dusty Baker said.
If the Astros hadn’t lost 5-4 to the Rangers, Alvarez’s two home runs might have become part of postseason lore. Instead, they were a strong example of his team’s willingness to fight to the end, an end that could be coming soon as the Astros trail by two games in the series.
Baker said Alvarez felt better Monday than he did Sunday, when he struck out three times and beat Jordan Montgomery’s curveballs. The manager added that Alvarez should do even better when the series resumes Wednesday at Globe Life Field in Arlington, a park where the Astros have dominated this season.
“We get them in Texas,” Baker said.
If not, this series will be remembered as the last gasp for the 2023 Astros and perhaps the start of a downturn for a team making its seventh straight ALCS appearance. But now we’re all conditioned to doubt the Astros at our own risk. They’ve been too good for too long for anyone to declare them done.
The way they play at Globe Life Field is the way they used to play at Minute Maid Park, where they are 40-45 this season including the playoffs, their first sub-.500 home record since 2014 .The flip side of that is their 51-30 record on the road, 6-1 at Globe Life where they averaged nine runs per game. The last time the Astros visited the Rangers in early September, they outscored them 39-10 in a shocking three-game sweep that ultimately helped swing the AL West title in Houston’s favor.
This series included a series of qualifying matches. Right-hander Nathan Eovaldi returned from the injured list without rehab and wasn’t the pitcher he was on Monday when he escaped a bases-loaded non-out jam in the fifth inning to take a 5-3 lead after six innings . Catcher Jonah Heim, who suffered a left wrist strain, had yet to return to offensive form. Third baseman Josh Jung remained out with a fractured left thumb, and rookie sensation Evan Carter was still in the minors, making his debut only after Adolis García was injured in the final game of the series.
The Rangers, 7-0 in the postseason, are clearly a different club now, and they haven’t even unleashed their pitching depth against the Astros. Andrew Heaney and Jon Gray, two pitchers who spent most of the season as starters, warmed up in the ninth inning Monday in case José Leclerc faltered.
Max Scherzer, pitching for the first time in more than five weeks, will start Game 3. The move isn’t without risk, but if Scherzer stumbles, the Rangers can rely on left-handers Cody Bradford and Martín Pérez as length options and save Heaney and Dane Dunning for a tandem start in Game 4. Or they can simply use other combinations.
The Astros aren’t playing badly. They lost by two runs on Sunday and one on Monday. However, Alvarez did much of his offensive work in the postseason, going 9-of-23 with six home runs and a decent OPS of 1.701, driving in eight of the team’s 24 runs.
GO DEEPER
They chase, lash out, push, and the Astros waste their chances as they fall into the 0-2 hole
Kyle Tucker is 2 of 22. Jose Altuve is in a 1-for-17 slump. Jose Abreu is 1-7 in the ALCS after going 5-for-16 with three home runs in the Division Series. Jeremy Peña, MVP of both the ALCS and World Series last season, has not hit a home run in 300 at-bats since July 5, including the postseason.
Still, in Game 1 against Jordan Montgomery, the Astros had eight hard-hit balls with departure velocities of 95 mph or more. They might still have won Game 2 if Framber Valdez hadn’t allowed four runs in his first 16 pitches, or if they hadn’t gone 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position, including pinch-hitters Yainer Diaz and Altuve , who struck out, and Alex Bregman, who went down to get nothing out of the bases-loaded, no-out threat against Eovaldi.
It could be that the Astros finally catch up. All the years we played so deep in the postseason, which perhaps contributed to the injuries to Lance McCullers, Luis Garcia and José Urquidy and the inconsistencies of Valdez and Cristian Javier. All the years the Rangers spent modestly in free agency over the last two offseasons while investing more than $800 million on the open market.
The Astros signed Altuve, Alvarez and Bregman to contract extensions of $100 million or more. But Abreu remains her biggest outside free agent signing at $58.5 million over three years under owner Jim Crane, who took over the team in November 2011.
While Crane was pretty successful in his own way, he dumped his general manager, James Click, after winning the World Series last season. He has reduced the emphasis on analytics that has brought the Astros great success. And he may need to hire a new manager soon as Baker nears the end of his contract.
However, the Astros’ run isn’t over yet. Players spoke boldly after Game 2, pledging to turn the series around in Arlington. Bregman pointed to the team’s extensive postseason experience and said it taught the players to focus on winning one pitch at a time. Chas McCormick said: “You can never ignore us. We never give up.”
Alvarez embodied that spirit on Monday, appearing weakened but still scoring two huge goals. His home runs should have become legend after the season. But the state of the Astros is such that they were relegated to sidelines in a disappointing postseason loss.
(Top photo by Yordan Alvarez: Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)