HOUSTON – Not much came easy for the Astros on their way to winning the American League West, a division they won on the final day of the season with a little help from the Mariners. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the defending champions find themselves in a dogfight in the AL Division Series.
All-Star left-hander Framber Valdez, who led the Astros to wins in all four postseason starts in 2022, failed in his first playoff start since Game 6 of last year’s World Series and was outpaced by Pablo López, who pitched seven scoreless innings pitched Sunday night to lead the Twins to a 6-2 win in Game 2, tying the ALDS at one game each.
“I just feel like in the postseason you try to win and execute every pitch of every game,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman said. “Of course we didn’t do that tonight. Tip your hat to Pablo [because] He pitched really well. We didn’t do enough offensively, but we need to regroup.”
With the current 2-2-1 format, if a Division Series is tied after two games, the club entering Games 3 and 4 has won the series 28 out of 42 times (67 percent).
The Astros’ 12-game home winning streak in the ALDS came to an end and they travel to Minneapolis for Games 3 and 4, needing a win to ensure another game at Minute Maid Park. Houston has been strong on the road this year, posting a record of 51-30, including 14-3, in their last 17 away games.
“It’s going to be a big crowd, it’s going to be loud,” Astros outfielder Chas McCormick said. “They have Sonny Gray on the mound, but we’ve been in this situation before. Obviously it’s the playoffs. It will be back and forth. We just have to go to Minnesota and be ready to play, hit and score runs.”
The Astros will throw Cristian Javier in Game 3, but he wasn’t the same Javier who was so brilliant in the regular season and postseason last year, although he did throw six scoreless innings in his final regular-season start at Arizona the week before. It will be either rookies JP France or Hunter Brown or veteran Jose Urquidy starting on the mound for Houston in Game 4.
“We’ve been in this situation before and all we have to do is take control one game at a time,” Astros catcher Martín Maldonado said. “We have Javi and I feel like Javi, he is made for big games. We all saw it in the World Series last year, and we all saw what he did in the last game in Arizona. We have one of our best guys starting.”
Valdez gave up a two-run home run to Kyle Farmer in the second inning, but the Astros’ inability to contain Carlos Correa was costly. As the Astros saw so often during his years in Houston, Correa rose to the occasion in the playoffs, going 3-for-4 with two doubles and three RBIs.
“He’s a great player,” said Bregman, who shared the left side of the infield with Correa for five 1/2 seasons. “He is one of the best players in the league and he has consistently made it to the postseason. You take your hat off to him and try to move on to the next day, move on to the next pitch and keep grinding and fighting, and that’s what this team does really well.”
The Astros managed to get just one runner past second base before Yordan Alvarez’s home run in the eighth inning, with López striking out seven and allowing six hits. Valdez, meanwhile, allowed five earned runs and seven hits in 4 1/3 innings after giving up just four earned runs in 25 innings in four starts, all wins for the Astros, in last year’s run to the World Series title.
Houston’s starting pitching isn’t as deep as it was in the postseason last year, when Justin Verlander and Valdez – two Cy Young top-five finishers – an effective Javier and the experienced Lance McCullers Jr. led the way. Now the Astros are hoping Javier’s late-season surge is real in Game 3 and are relying on either France, Brown or Urquidy in Game 4, with Verlander ready for a possible Game 5.
“We know we’re a good away team,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “We would like to bring it back to the house here or win it there. So that’s our goal and their goal is to win there. We’ll see that next Tuesday.”