Rays 4, Astros 1
ALDS Record: 2-2 in best of five series
Attendance: 32,178. Tropicana Field. Another full house with rowdy Rays' fans waving towels and ringing cowbells. It was an outright love fest so at odds with the neglect the same fans showed during the regular season. Somehow this is the head scratching reality of Rays baseball, which may well be headed to Montreal for at least half of every season. The puzzle of Rays' attendance could not be more frustrating.
The Rays were juiced by the crowd from the get-go. Tommy Pham, the second man up in the first inning, hit a 2-2 changeup on a line over the left field fence, stunning Justin Verlander, who was confident he could handle the Rays on three days rest instead of four or five. Hadn't he one-hit them into the eighth inning in game one? Two batters in and he had already matched that hit output and scored a run as well. Suddenly Verlander and the Astros began to wonder if maybe they had made a strategic error putting him out there on short rest. They were trying to put the Rays away in four games, and Verlander had seemed the best man for the job, but Pham's homer gave the entire Astro organization pause. You could almost hear them second guessing themselves.
And the first inning wasn't even over. Ji-Man Choi walked, Avasail Garcia singled, Travis d'Arnaud singled in Choi, and Joey Wendle doubled to score Garcia, and suddenly Verlander was behind 3-0 after making 32 pitches. The second guessing was over. It was clear they had made a mistake. Not only was this not going to be a repeat of game one, it had all the markings of another wipeout. In the fourth, Willy Adames hit a long home run to make it 4-0, and Verlander was through for the night: three and two thirds innings, seven hits, three walks, and four runs.
In the meantime, Kevin Cash was busy with a pitching plan of his own. This was not to be an opener and bulk-man day, so normal all year for the Rays. Instead, it was all bullpen, like spring training games. The idea was to never give the Astros two at-bats against the same pitcher. Diego Castillo started and went one and two-thirds. Ryan Yarbrough pitched two innings, Nick Anderson pitched two and a third, Colin Poche pitched one and a third (and gave up a homer to Robinson Chirinos), Emilio Pagan pitched two-thirds of an inning, and for the last two outs, Cash called on his ace Cy Young winner Blake Snell, who shut the door on an Astro rally and sealed the victory--and a showdown winner-take-all game five on Thursday in Houston.
The Relay. As compelling as all these storylines are, the turning point of the game was a defensive gem that has already passed from history to legend. In the top of the fourth, with Jose Altuve on first, DH Yordan Alvarez hit a Yarbrough pitch to straightaway center field at a blistering 113.7 mph. Even speedy Kevin Kiermaier was unable to catch up to it. It short-hopped the wall and took a high, loopy bounce that Kiermaier had to wait for. When it came down 384 feet from home plate, he caught it, pivoted and threw to relay man Willy Adames, who also caught, pivoted, and threw from 178 feet to the plate where d'Arnaud caught it and made a sweep tag on the speedy Altuve, who was making a hook slide to evade the tag, hoping to score by sliding his left hand over the plate. By a fraction of an inch, a mere millisecond, the tag was made before Altuve's hand hit home. It was a stunning turn for the Astros, who never recovered enough to climb back into this game.
Game five, Thursday, 7:07, Minute Maid Park, Houston. Gerrit Cole vs. Tyler Glasnow. All hands on deck for the finale.
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