Because this one just had all kinds of stuff mixed together. Also, if we spell it this way we aren't mandated to say "presented by YouTube TV".
Gone In 148 Minutes
As soon as Former New Britain Rock Cat Brian Dozier hit the fifth pitch of the postseason for a leadoff home run, we made it a habit to have the "leadoff homer" notes ready before each game. After all, that's one of the few things you can predict-- there's always potential for a leadoff homer. Turns out we didn't need any of them for three whole weeks. But when we did, it was in the perfect spot.
It had been 10,596 days since a Dodgers hitter last saw a pitch in the World Series (trivia time: who?), and Chris Taylor decided time was a-wasting, cranking that first pitch over the fence for the Dodgers' second leadoff homer ever in a World Series. Davey Lopes took Catfish Hunter deep to open Game 6 of the 1978 classic, though the Yankees scored four unanswered runs late to clinch the championship. Taylor also became just the fourth batter ever to hit a leadoff homer in Game 1 of a World Series; the previous one had been two years ago by Alcides Escobar, reigniting debate over whether that play should really be scored an inside-the-parker. The others to do it were Dustin Pedroia in 2007 and the Orioles' Don Buford in 1969.
In a scene strangely reminiscent of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium, the Astros' bats refused to get going on the road, and Clayton Kershaw finally quieted the tired "October" narrative. Kershaw fanned 11 Houstonians and allowed just three hits, although one of those happened to be an Alex Bregman homer for the Astros' only scoring. Kershaw, of course, padded his lead in the "homer" department by giving up four of them in the Division Series in Arizona; he is the sixth pitcher to allow seven longballs in one postseason, although obviously there are more rounds now. The last to do it was Cole Hamels in 2009.
The double-digit strikeout count was the fifth of Kershaw's postseason career, and he's done it once each year as the Dodgers have made the playoffs each season since 2013. Not only is it the first such five-season streak in postseason history, Kershaw is the first pitcher to have a 10-K game in any five postseasons, consecutive or not. Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, and (including this year) Justin Verlander have all done it four times.
Oh, and did we mention not walking anyone either? That put Kershaw in elite company, and "Sterling Hitchcock" isn't usually the first name you think of when someone says "elite". But he's the only other pitcher in postseason history (not just WS) to have a game with 11 strikeouts, no walks, and a max of 3 hits allowed. That was also against the Astros, in the fourth and final game of the 1998 Division Series against the Padres.
And for once in this season of #bullpenning and pitching changes every two batters and hitters taking seven pitches before even thinking about swinging, we got a game where all the stars aligned. Four runs, two walks, nine hits, four runners stranded (combined), the home team won (so no B9), only three at-bats longer than six pitches, and only one mid-inning pitching change. That adds up to an incredibly tidy 2 hours 28 minutes, the shortest World Series game since the Braves' Tom Glavine and the Jays' Jimmy Key both pitched into the 8th in Game 4 of the 1992 showdown. It was the shortest game of this postseason by a full 32 minutes.
And if you've ever balanced a boxscore, you know that 51 outs (since Dodgers did not need B9) plus 4 runs plus 4 LOB equals just 59 total plate appearances, tying for the third-fewest in World Series history. The last 59 was Game 2 in 2001, when Randy Johnson complete-game-shutout-ed the Yankees; the only games with fewer were Larsen's perfecto (56 PA), and a 1-0 clincher by Baltimore's Dave McNally in 1966 (57 PA). Apparently (they didn't admit this, but it feels reasonable) 2:28 was so short that MLB was even forced to move the remaining games of the series back 11 minutes to make up for lost advertising time.
Trivia answer: Alfredo Griffin. He grounded out to end the top of the 9th in Game 5 of the 1988 Series; Orel Hershiser then finished off a complete game in B9 as the Dodgers won the title in Oakland.
That. Really. Happened.
For a while it looked like Vin Scully's epic first-pitch ceremony might be the most memorable thing about Game 2. Dave Roberts started #bullpenning in the 5th inning again; Justin Verlander only gave up two hits, but both were home runs; and once again we sat on a 3-1 score through seven innings before Alex Bregman doubled to lead off the 8th and eventually scored to make our situation a bit more tenuous. The Dodgers finished the 8th still with only those two hits, resulting in a lot of searches for wins with two hits, wins with three hits (just in case they get a cheap one), team's only hits being home runs, and so forth.
Flush.
In what can only be described as one of the biggest home runs in Astros history (mainly because their radio broadcast kept describing it as such), Marwin Gonzalez deposited a ball just over the center-field wall to lead off the 9th and tie the game. It was the first game-tying homer in a World Series road game since Dwight Evans gave the Red Sox new life in Game 3 in Cincinnati in 1975 (they still lost), and the first by any Astro at Dodger Stadium since Lance Berkman hit one on May 27, 2001.
A George Springer two-out double went for naught, and so there's still a chance the Dodgers win via walkoff. Cue furious search for World Series walkoff notes, again with only two or three or four hits, last walkoff via whatever is about to happen (homer, sac fly, hit-by-pitch), and even though the Dodgers went 1-2-3 in the 9th to send us off to extras, those notes will still be good if the Astros don't score in the 10th.
Flush.
Before we could finish typing anything about the first one, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa went back-to-back in the span of three pitches, the first pair of B2B homers in extra innings in World Series history. The only other pair in any postseason game was by the Mariners' Edgar Martinez and John Olerud in their 2000 Division Series with the White Sox. The Astros had only hit three other sets of back-to-back homers in extra innings in team history, and bizarrely, all of those had come against the Mets (most recently May 2, 2001).
So of course Yasiel Puig starts the bottom of the 10th with yet another homer, making this the first-ever World Series game with three extra-inning homers. The only one with two was in 2011 and is commonly known as The David Freese Game, where he hit the walkoff in the 11th after the teams traded runs in the 10th. Logan Forsythe drew a two-out walk, but the Dodgers still only have three hits and they're all homers. As long as Enrique Hernandez makes the last out and ends the game, a few of our notes are still good.
Flush.
And not even a walkoff homer, a seeing-eye single to score Forsythe from second, tie the game again, earn Ken Giles another demerit (it's technically not a blown save because he entered in the 9th when it was tied, but it sure felt like one), and send us off to the 11th. That David Freese game in 2011, and Game 3 of the 1914 classic, are the only other World Series games where teams traded runs in an extra inning to force another extra inning.
At least we didn't have to wait long. After a leadoff single by Cameron Maybin, George Springer promptly hit a two-run blast, the first time in Astros history (regular or postseason) that they'd gone deep three times in extra innings in one game. In the entire 2017 regular season, the Astros only hit two extra-inning homers, and the Dodgers only gave up one. You might remember that one, too; it was Josh Harrison's walkoff to spoil Rich Hill's no-hitter. And when Charlie Culberson hit yet another solo shot in the bottom of the 11th to make the final score 7-6, it made World Series Game 2 the first contest ever-- in over 210,000 major-league games-- to have five extra-inning home runs. There have been 10 games with four, and oddly, one of those was earlier this year.
Lost in the end of the game was the fact that Justin Verlander got into the 5th before Joc Pederson homered, marking the eighth time this year an Astros pitcher had a no-hitter through four innings. Seven of those got broken in the 5th; Lance McCullers made it into the 7th on June 8 at Kansas City. And by giving up only the two homers, Verlander became the first starter in World Series history to give up multiple hits in a game with all of them being home runs. (Remember this part.)
Yu Rang?
Once again, just like the ALCS, the Astros' bats really woke up again once they got back to the friendly, indoor, not-100-degree confines of Minute Maid Park. Or maybe that had something to do with Yu Darvish's ineffective slider (which may, in turn, have had something to do with the baseballs?). After working around a leadoff double in the 1st, Darvish surrendered a controversial homer to Yuli Gurriel (the homer wasn't controversial, the rest was) followed by four more hits and a sacrifice fly to give Houston a 4-0 lead and basically the win. Darvish got yanked after just five outs, the first start of his major-league career where he had failed to finish the 3rd inning (to say nothing of the 2nd). However, he's in pretty good company (as is anyone who starts a World Series game); the other Dodgers to allow four earned runs in under two innings in the Series are Don Newcombe (1956), Karl Spooner (1955), and Carl Erskine (1953). Gurriel had a triple and double in the clinching Division Series game against the Red Sox, and thus joined Chris Burke (2005) as the only Astros to hit for a postseason cycle.
McCann would tack on two more hits in addition to his RBI single in that 2nd inning, becoming the first number-9 hitter to have a three-hit game in the World Series since Jose Vizcaino did it for the Yankees in the 2000 opener. And only one other catcher had done it, that being the Phillies' Bob Boone in 1980 against the Royals.
After the Dodgers clawed back to 5-3 in the 6th, Lance McCullers was lifted in favor of Brad Peacock, who "mustered" (get it?) the strength to finish the game while allowing only a 7th-inning walk to Andre Ethier. He is just the third pitcher ever to throw 3⅔ innings or more of hitless relief in a World Series game, and because we're down the path of bird references, the others were both Cardinals. Ron Taylor did it against the Yankees in 1964, as did Ted Wilks in 1944 in the all-St Louis series. Only two Astros had recorded 11 outs, no hits, four strikeouts, and gotten a save in the regular season, and one of those was in the team's first year before saves were even official. That belonged to Don McMahon (against the Cardinals again) on August 28, 1962; the one that's officially on the books is by Charlie Kerfield against the Padres on August 9, 1986. Combined with McCullers' relief appearance in ALCS 7, the Astros are the first team to record a pair of more-than-3-inning saves in the same postseason.
Knock On Wood
As we have discussed, no-hitters annoy us because everyone freaks out about them and it's hard to write about something that didn't happen. At least in the playoffs there's only one game going on at a time, so there aren't 14 others being ignored. And we've been watching the same eight teams all month, so much like those leadoff homers from Game 1, we aren't looking up the same notes over and over again.
That said, Alex Wood, like Yu Darvish before him, put his name next to some Dodger legends, albeit for a much different reason. After two walks, one retired on a double play, Wood became the 10th pitcher in Dodgers history to take a no-hitter through four innings. Three outs later he became the first of those to take one through five.
And speaking of nothing happening, after Chris Taylor's leadoff single (he joins Davey Lopes, Maury Wills, Jim Gilliam, and Billy Cox as Dodgers with two leadoff hits in a Series), Charlie Morton rattled off 15 straight outs of his own, meaning we reached the end of the 5th inning with only that hit on the
Finally with two outs in the 6th George Springer got hold of one to break up the no-hitter and the shutout and actually knock Wood (heh) out of the game despite allowing just the one hit. Wood thereby broke Sandy Koufax's record for the longest World Series no-hit bid in Dodger history; Koufax held the Yankees at bay for 4⅔ in the opener of the 1963 Series, a game in which he set the WS strikeout record with 15. (Breaking the record of Carl Erskine from 10 years earlier, in yet another of those 10 Dodger no-hit bids to get through four innings.)
Springer, for his part, became the first player ever to break up a World Series no-hit bid with a home run in the 6th inning or later. Wood was the 19th (not counting Larsen) to have one broken up after 5+, but the previous latest homer had been by Roger Maris in 1962 Game 6; he opened the scoring (and the hitting) against the Giants' Billy Pierce with two outs in the 5th.
And remember that Verlander factoid from Game 2 about giving up two hits and having both of them be homers? By getting pulled immediately, Wood managed to post the same line of "every hit was a homer". It just happened twice in four days after being done by only two other starters in the previous 112 World Series combined. "El Duque" Orlando Hernandez (1999 Game 1) and another Dodger, Johnny Podres (1953 Game 5), each had the "1 hit, 1 home run" line in their games.
Game 4, however, would ultimately be won on Cody Bellinger's RBI double in the top of the 9th, coming yet again off Ken Giles. Bellinger became the youngest player with a go-ahead RBI in the 9th inning of a World Series game since Edgar Renteria's walkoff single gave the Marlins the 1997 title. And when Bellinger and Justin Turner came around to score insurance runs, Giles became the first pitcher to enter a tie game in the 9th and give up three runs without recording an out. Which is why he likely won't be entering any more.
And again, just while we're getting our one-hitter notes ready (including a link to this classic Skip Caray call of the last World Series one-hitter), Alex Bregman pummels a two-out homer to make the final score 6-2 instead of 6-1. He did not, however, destroy the fact that the Astros are the first team in World Series history to have a game where every hit was a dinger. It was the fourth such game in Houston's team annals, and by virtue of Bregman batting second, the Astros also became the first team in (at least) the live-ball era to get a home run from their leadoff hitter, a home run from their number-2 hitter, and no other hits in the game. (Though honorable mention to the Yankees of July 3, 1975, who had leadoff man Bobby Bonds crank two homers and no one else get a hit.)
Harkening back to that last section title, here's a little disco break since you probably know what's coming next. Intermission!
Hold My Beer
Apparently Game 5 heard us whining about how nothing happened in Game 4.
Chris Taylor once again led off with a single, joining Jim Gilliam (1953) as the only Dodgers with three leadoff hits in one World Series. But even after that led to three 1st-inning runs, we were nowhere near done.
Dallas Keuchel got the hook in the 4th inning after allowing another run, his first start of 4+ runs in under 4 innings start since September 6, 2013, at Oakland. That hook, of course, comes a lot earlier in a World Series game, and when Yuli Gurriel hit a tying three-run homer in the bottom of the 4th, Keuchel was literally off the hook. He joins Peter Munro (2004 NLCS) as the only Astros starters to give up four runs in under four innings and not get charged with the loss.
Gurriel's homer was immediately followed by Cody Bellinger hitting another three-run homer in T5 to put the Dodgers back in front 7-4. Only twice before in World Series history had one team hit a three- or four-run homer and had it answered by a similar homer in the next half-inning. Frank Robinson and Hector Lopez traded hits in 1961 Game 5, and Duke Snider answered Yogi Berra's shot in Game 2 of the 1956 Series. Gurriel's homer was also the eighth allowed by Clayton Kershaw in this postseason, setting a new major-league "record", although there are obviously more rounds now.
After Kershaw walked two Astros in the bottom of the 5th, it was his turn to hit the showers, with Kenta Maeda summoned yet again as the first "reliever" out of Dave Roberts' bullpen. Jose Altuve promptly met him with yet another three-run homer, tying the game at 7-7 and making it simultaneously the first World Series game to have three 3-run homers, and the fourth where both teams scored seven runs in the first five innings. The last of those was the Angels' 11-10 victory over San Francisco in Game 2 of the 2002 Series.
Bellinger would triple in another run to make it 8-7 in the top of the 7th; he is the youngest player ever to record a homer and a triple in a World Series game (Bryce Harper in 2012 was the only one younger in any postseason game). But you didn't think that would last, did you?
Brandon Morrow took the ball for the bottom of the 7th and, having pitched in all five games of the series so far, promptly gave up four hits and four runs on only six pitches. When Carlos Correa finally knocked him out with a home run, it was 11-8 Astros and we were working on the highest-scoring World Series games of all time. Altuve, Gurriel, and Correa became the first three teammates in World Series history with a homer and 3 RBI in the same game, and when you add Bellinger's shot for the Dodgers, it was the first time four players had done it for both teams combined. Morrow was only the second pitcher in World Series history to face four batters and give up a hit and a run to all of them-- and the other was a starter. Charlie Root of the Cubs opened Game 2 of the 1935 classic by allowing single-double-single-homer before being replaced; the Tigers won that game 8-3.
Brian McCann made it 12-9 in the 8th and made the Astros the first team in World Series history to have five different players homer in the same game. (Only two teams, the 1989 Athletcs and 1928 Yankees, had hit five in a game, but with multiples by one player.)
Yasiel Puig added a seventh home run in the 9th to make it 12-11 and come one shy of the World Series record for homers-- set on Wednesday in Game 2! The 22nd homer of the series topped the record of the Angels and Giants in 2002, with potentially two more games to go. That, of course, is assuming Chris Devenski can get one. more. strike. Sigh.
Chris Taylor roped a single up the middle to score Austin Barnes and really make this game 12-12. When Josh Reddick flied out to end B9, we had the first contest in over five years that went to extras with both teams having already scored 12 runs; the Angels pulled out a 10-inning win (14-13) over the Red Sox on August 23, 2012. The Astros had never been involved in such a game, while the Dodgers last did it on May 19, 1990, in losing a 15-12 affair to the Phillies.
At least, with the way these teams were scoring, you figured it wouldn't be long. And with two outs in the 10th, Alex Bregman came through again with a walkoff single to score Derek Fisher from second. Fisher got the claim of being the first pinch runner in 22 years to score a walkoff run in a World Series game; Alvaro Espinosa, running for Carlos Baerga, did so for the Indians in 1995 Game 3. In the Dodgers' 216-game postseason history, they'd never scored in double digits and lost; and their last time scoring a dozen and losing was to the Rangers on September 2, 1997 (that was the Dodgers' first-ever interleague game in Texas; Sunday will be their last until late August).
As reported many other places, the 13-12 final tied for the second-highest-scoring game in World Series history, but thanks to our exciting score matrix, it pulled off one other feat. It was the first and only 13-12 score in the majors this season, and that was the one we had needed for almost two months now. Except for ties, 2017 featured every possible score starting with 13 or lower (so, 1-0 to 13-12), which has only happened five times in major-league history. The other seasons were 2007, 1998, 1996, and (!) 1884.
and we're pretty sure Excel wasn't around in 1884.
One-To-Three
Which adds up to six, and Game 6 back at Dodger Stadium sure looked a whole lot like Game 1 at Dodger Stadium (aside from the 36-degree temperature difference). The Astros got their only run on a solo homer, this time from George Springer in the top of the 3rd. It was Springer's third go-ahead homer in the World Series, something only four other players have accomplished: Curtis Granderson in 2015, Gene Tenace in 1972, Lou Gehrig (1928), and Babe Ruth (1926). Springer's other homer of the Series was a tying shot as part of Brandon Morrow's meltdown in Game 5; he and Gehrig are the only ones to have go-ahead or tying homers in three straight World Series games.
The Astros loaded the bases in the 5th, and had two more runners in the 6th, but failed to score either time. That swung some momentum to the Dodgers, who took the lead with a single, hit-by-pitch, double, and sac fly in the bottom half. Joc Pederson would later crank his third home run of the series for an insurance tally, joining Davey Lopes, Reggie Smith, and Duke Snider as Dodgers with three homers in the same World Series.
The Astros' failure to rally left Justin Verlander on the hook for the loss; only two other pitchers have struck out nine and walked zero in a World Series game and failed to get the win. They were Curt Schilling, who got a no-decision in the final game of 2001 when the Yankees tied it but Luis Gonzalez walked off; and Don Newcombe, who lost the first-ever 1-0 walkoff in World Series history on Tommy Henrich's home run in the 1949 opener.
And if that 3-1 thing looks familiar, yes, it's the same score as Game 1 (and actually Game 2 after 7 innings before all hell broke loose). It was the first repeated score in the last five World Series; the Giants had a pair of 2-0 wins over Detroit in 2012, but the last four Series all had a different score in each game. However, in 2012, one of those 2-0 wins came at AT&T Park and the other came at Comerica. Amazingly, the last time a World Series had the same final score twice in the same venue was way back in 1985. The Royals bookended the eastern part of the "I-70 Series" at Busch Stadium with identical 6-1 wins over the Cardinals in Games 3 and 5.
Lucky Sevens
As fans, we're really the lucky ones who got to see this series get all the way to a deciding game, the 2,468th one played in the major-league season. That's one shy of 2013's record; that season had a Game 163 between the Rays and Rangers for an AL Wild Card spot.
Once again George Springer opened things with a leadoff double, the first player ever to hit one in a winner-take-all road game. Bernie Carbo (1975 Red Sox) and Hank Bauer (1957 Yankees) both hit them at home, and both their teams lost. And while he did not record his sixth straight game with an RBI, Alex Bregman promptly "drove him in" with a grounder to first that Cody Bellinger airmailed. Dodgers leadoff man Chris Taylor answered Springer with his own double, only the second time in World Series history that both teams had recorded one in the same game. Kiko Garcia of the Orioles and Omar Moreno of the Pirates traded those hits in Game 3 of the 1979 Series. Lance McCullers plunked Justin Turner and Yasiel Puig to load the bases but escaped without allowing a run, setting up still more Springer heroics.
Brian McCann walked to lead off the 2nd, later scoring on a McCullers groundout. That made McCullers the first pitcher with an RBI in a winner-take-all game since Jesse Orosco for the Mets in 1986. No American League hurler had ever had one, and the last by a starter was when Bob Gibson homered for the Cardinals in the 1967 finale against the Red Sox. But Springer promptly put the game out of reach with a two-run homer, his fifth of the series and fourth straight game with a longball. Springer became the first player ever to homer in four straight World Series games in one season. The only players to do it at all did it over multiple years: Reggie Jackson in 1977-78, and Lou Gehrig in the last three games of 1928 and the Yankees' next appearance in 1932. Springer and Taylor combined for 11 extra-base hits in the series, easily the record out of the leadoff spot. The Indians and Marlins in 1997 got 9 XBH from the top of the order, and that required three different batters.
Springer's homer also knocked Yu Darvish out of the game having recorded just five outs and given up four earned runs, identical to his Game 3 line. He's the only pitcher in postseason history to have two such starts in the same year; the only one to do it at all was the Yankees' Bob Turley, once in 1955 and again in 1958. Another Yankee, Art Ditmar in 1960, is the only other pitcher to make two starts of less than 2 IP in the same World Series, regardless of runs allowed.
McCullers, meanwhile, who hit a total of four batters over a 14-start span from April to July, grazed Enrique Hernandez in the second (but escaped another jam with a leaping lineout/double play by Carlos Correa) and then hit Turner again in the 3rd before having to be removed. Not only did he become the first pitcher in postseason history to hit four batters in a game, he joined Darryl Kile (June 2, 1996, at St Louis) as the only pitchers in Astros history ever to do it. And when Brad Peacock got out of that jam, McCullers cemented his place as the first pitcher in (at least) the live-ball era to hit four batters but not give up a run.
Clayton Kershaw, who after Game 6 reportedly said he was ready to throw 27 innings if needed (he probably meant 27 outs, but that just made it funnier), came up 23 short, but he did keep the Astros off the board from the 3rd through the 6th. Only two other Dodgers had thrown four scoreless innings in relief in a World Series game, Larry Sherry in 1959 and Russ Myers in 1955. However, he was outdone by Charlie Morton who pitched the final four innings (and got to "bat" for himself in the top of the 9th because he was cruising) and allowed just two hits. Morton was credited with the win as the "most effective reliever" since McCullers didn't go five and the lead never changed, a slightly different twist than the famous Madison Bumgarner save in 2014. But before Bumgarner, only four other pitchers had fired the final four-plus innings of a World Series clincher while allowing two hits or fewer. The last was our friend Bob Turley of the Yankees, who redeemed himself in Game 7 of the '58 Series after his disastrous start in Game 2. (Joe Page 1947, Dolf Luque 1933, and Rube Walberg 1929 are the others.)
In the end, those five hits were enough for the Astros to win their first championship as the Dodgers stranded 10 runners on base and went just 1-for-13 in scoring position. Houston is just the fourth team to win a title on the road with five or fewer hits in the clinching game, joining the 1983 Orioles, 1955 Dodgers, and 1923 Yankees.
And as mentioned at the end of our LCS post, the Dodgers won the NL pennant two days before the Astros outlasted the Yankees in Game 7. That makes an amazing nine straight seasons that the team with the longer layoff lost the World Series.
So Now What?
213 days 10 hours 46 minutes later, it's all over. (Check out the link in the top bar for this data going back 25 seasons.) If you add up the collective length of all 2,468 of those games this season, it's over 324 days, so you can start watching them back-to-back now and be entertained until the middle of next September. We'll be around with some superlatives from this season, some fun pieces from our Kernels Rules Desk, and whatever else tickles our fancy.
And we've updated our clock at the top of each post so it's already counting down to 1:10 pm on March 29. It may not seem like it now, but it'll be here before you know it. Thanks for a great season.
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