Does it already feel like the playoffs have lasted longer than the regular season did? It certainly has been a much-longer road for the teams who are still playing, which is ironic because for the first time ever there was no travel involved in the LCS round. The two neutral sites in Arlington and San Diego also meant no off-days to regroup. So those elusive little triangles (the pennants) came down to who wanted it more and which team was able to best navigate this weird season. And this round was mighty exciting.
After overpowering the Athletics in their Division Series, the Astros started the LCS round with a bang (yeah, we said it) when Jose Altuve went deep in the first inning of the first game. As will become a theme here, Altuve also did that in Game 1 of the 2017 Division Series against Boston, meaning he accounts for half the Astros' all-time total of 1st-inning Game 1 homers. Alex Bregman went back-to-back with him in that 2017 game, and the other was Carlos Beltran in the 2004 NLCS against St Louis. Thanks to this year's bizarre scheduling, the Astros also hit a 1st-inning homer at Petco Park back on August 23 courtesy of Kyle Tucker. The only other time they'd hit two there in the same year was its inaugural season, 2004, by Craig Biggio and Jose Vizcaino.
However, if you thought this was gonna be the start of a whole bunch of Astros highlights, well, no. Because that homer would end up being the Astros' only run of the game, the first postseason contest in their history where that happened. It was also the fifth time the Astros had scored in the 1st inning of a postseason game and then laid all goose eggs after that; not surprisingly, they lost all five games. Instead, Sunday's Game 1 is where we catch up with Randy Arozarena, or should we say, he catches up with Altuve. After the Astros squandered four baserunners in the 4th by hitting into a double play, "Aroz" (as we're going to call him, given how many times we're going to type it in this series) hits his own solo homer for a 1-1 tie. Turns out he homered in Game 1 of their Division Series against the Yankees, joining Ben Zobrist as the team's only players to go deep in multiple Games 1. (And Zobrist's were in different years.) In the next inning, Mike Zunino would drive in Willy Adames with an otherwise-unnotable RBI single, but when the teams combined for 12 baserunners in the last four frames and stranded all of them, the Rays were on the good end of a 2-1 squeaker. Blake Snell joined Andy Sonnanstine (2008 ALCS 4) as the only Rays pitchers to strike out a mere 2 batters and get a win. Framber Valdez, who gave up only 4 hits and struck out 8, still took the loss; only Justin Verlander (2017 WS 6) and Randy Johnson (1998 NLDS 4) had done that in Astros postseason history.
And speaking of strikeouts, Hunter Renfroe joined Austin Meadows (last year, also against Houston) as the only Rays batters with four of them in a postseason game. And when Aroz wasn't hitting game-tying homers, he was fanning as well; he joined Melvin Upton (2008 ALCS 2) as the only Rays batters with a homer and a 3-strikeout hat trick in the same postseason game.
Aroz is going to have 2 singles in Game 2 on Monday, but no homers. Sorry. However, a couple of his teammates are going to fill that void in a game that can only be described as a study in missed opportunities. Aroz's first single came with 2 outs in the 1st, after which Jose Altuve-- instead of homering-- committed a throwing error to extend the inning. Sometimes teams escape those with no damage. The Astros were not that team. Two pitches later, Manuel Margot cranks a 3-run homer that would end up being all the offense the Rays needed. That was Tampa Bay's first 3- or 4-run homer in the 1st inning of a postseason game, and the second one ever surrendered by Houston. Aaron Hicks took Justin Verlander deep in Game 5 of the ALCS last year. Only three Rays players have ever hit a 3- or 4-run homer at Petco Park, and two of them are this postseason. Kevin Kiermaier had one in the Division Series that was also played in San Diego, while Aubrey Huff hit one against the Padres in their first-ever visit on June 15, 2004. The Astros, meanwhile, had nine baserunners in the first four innings and managed to not score any of them. Their only RBI would come in the 6th when Carlos Correa hit a solo homer. Even in the 9th when the first three batters all singled, they only scored a run at the expense of a double play. Game 2 was the second time in Astros postseason history where they converted 10 or more hits into 2 or fewer runs; the other was also an LCS 2, in 1986 against the Mets. Because that Margot homer was unearned, Lance McCullers became the fifth pitcher in postseason history (any team) to strike out 11, give up 1 earned run, and lose. The previous was Blue Moon Odom for Oakland all the way back in 1972; Bob Turley of the Yankees also did it (1956) along with Brooklyn's Don Newcombe (1949) and another Athletics legend, Chief Bender (1911).
Altuve would commit a second throwing error later in the game; although this one did not cost any runs, it still made him just the second Astros player with a multi-error game in the postseason, after Julio Lugo in 2001. And Mike Zunino did add another homer to make the final score 4-2, but that was still only the Rays' fourth hit of the game. Counting the last game against the Yankees, they had three straight postseason games where they had no more than 6 hits, and they won all of them. The Dodgers did the same thing in the Division Series round; before this year only two teams had ever done it-- the 1974 A's and the 1919 Reds (who probably had some help). Monday's game also made the Rays the second team in postseason history to strike out 13 times, draw 0 walks, and win. The other was the 1973 Reds, for whom Joe Morgan batted second; the Rays' performance came, of course, on the same day that Morgan died.
Someone say Dodgers? Over in Arlington they were battling the Braves for the National League pennant, and this one also looked like it might be over early. With all due respect to Walker Buehler and Max Fried, who are both very fine pitchers, you wouldn't figure on the two of them being a Game 1 postseason matchup. But here we are in 2020 and it largely lived up to the billing. Freddie Freeman and Enrique Hernandez traded solo homers to put us in a 1-1 deadlock and hey, remember Game 1 of the Braves' Wild Card Series? Fried and Buehler were the sixth opposing starters in postseason history to each allow 1 run, atrike out 7+, and get a no-decision. It wasn't until the 9th, with Buehler long gone and the Dodgers on pitcher number 5 (Blake Treinen), that the floodgates suddenly opened.
Austin Riley, leadoff homer to give Atlanta the lead. That was the sixth such homer in Braves postseason history, and the first since Rick Ankiel went deep in the 11th of 2010 NLDS 2 against the Giants. Ronald Acuña doubles. Marcell Ozuna singles him in. And then with Jake McGee on the hill, Ozzie Albies provides the final margin with another homer. For the Dodgers it was the first postseason game in team history where they'd surrendered multiple 9th-inning homers, and if you extend that to include extras, the only one is That Game With All The Homers, aka 2017 World Series Game 2. The Braves had only hit multiple 9th-inning homers in a postseason game once before, and that was last year when Acuña and Freeman did it against Carlos Martinez of the Cardinals.
The Braves kept that rhythm going in Game 2 on Tuesday, although there were some nerve-striking chords like a diminished 7th and a major 9th before it finally resolved. They piled up 7 runs, 5 off starter Tony Gonsolin, before the Dodgers even made a dent, and of course Freddie Freeman homered again. He was the first Braves batter to homer in Games 1 and 2 of a series since... oh yeah. Remember how Dansby Swanson and Travis d'Arnaud both did that last week? No team's ever had three players do it in the same postseason. Gonsolin, for his part, only gave up 3 hits and struck out 7; the hits were just improperly timed around a couple of walks. Only one other pitcher in postseason history had given up 5 runs on 3 hits with 7 K's... and it's the guy who started yesterday, Walker Buehler. (He didn't do it yesterday, though. Though it was against the Braves, in their Division Series from 2018.)
Now let's make some music. With apologies to Bob Seger and Pete Seeger, it was Corey Seager who somehow turned a seventh into a power chord by mashing a 3-run homer in the Dodgers' half of the 7th inning. Seager's going to end up making a lot of music by the end of this series, but for now he was the fourth Los Angeles Dodger (1958) to hit a 3- or 4-run homer that broke up a shutout of 7 or more, that late in a game. Justin Ruggiano and Carl Crawford (whom we forgot was ever a Dodger) both hit them in 2015, but before that the only one was by Tommy Davis on June 16, 1963. As for hitting a postseason homer with the Dodgers trailing by 7 runs, at any point, Seager's was the sixth; Adrian Gonzalez and Howie Kendrick both hit them in a 2015 NLDS game with the Mets.
Ozzie Albies' homer would make the game 8-3 in the 9th, and watch out for those ninths. Josh Tomlin needs 3 outs before he gives up 5 runs. And because Baseball In 2020, neither of those things happened. Mookie Betts single. Seager doubles him in, joining Max Muncy (August 29), Casey Blake (2009), and Charles Johnson (1998) as the only Dodgers to homer and double in the same game in Arlington. Speaking of Muncy, guess who's about to clobber a 2-out, 2-run homer. There's your third. (Third run, third interval in the chord, however you want to, um, play.) The Dodgers had only hit one other multi-run homer when trailing with 2 outs in the 9th of a postseason game. You may have heard of it. And now Albies' homer turns out to be (heh) key, because he also misplays Will Smith's bouncy little number that should have ended this mess. And then scores on a Cody Bellinger triple with the Dodgers down to their final out. Bellinger also hit one of those at Coors Field in September 2018; only Willie Davis has done it twice in Los Angeles Dodgers history. And you might remember Bellinger hitting another triple just last week, the one that put the final nail in the Cardinals' coffin in the Division Series by turning a 10-3 win into a 12-3 win. He's the first player in postseason history to have multiple triples with 2 outs in the 9th inning.
But as we said, our ninth is going to resolve with a nice harmonious flourish when Mark Melançon gets the final out to strand Bellinger at third and allow the Braves to escape 8-7, and 2-0 in the series. Amazingly, he's the first pitcher in Braves postseason history-- even including retroactive saves before 1969-- to be credited with a save when the only out he got was the final one.
Back in San Diego, Jose Altuve certainly knows how to start things with a bang. Wait, didn't we go here once already? Yep, we sure did. This time the Astros were the designated home team in the all-neutral-site series, so Altuve's 1st-inning homer in Game 3 came in the bottom half. But otherwise, more of the same; Tuesday's blast was Altuve's sixth 1st-inning homer in postseason play, tying Albert Pujols for the most all-time. Aroz hit a double, Kyle Tucker went first-to-third on a single, but neither team really did anything for a few more innings. It was the top of the 6th when our buddy Aroz leads off with a single and then is safe at second on yet another Altuve throwing error. Although this one only led to 1 run, it was enough to flip the momentum and start The Big Inning. Two more singles, including a 2-run job by Joey Wendle to flip the lead in the Rays' favor. In their limited postseason history, the Rays had never had a lead-flipping single of any kind. Next came a sacrifice bunt by Manuel Margot, the first successful sac bunt by any team in this entire postseason. Thanks to the shortened schedule, the Rays became the first team in MLB history to have 0 sac bunts in the regular season and then lay one down in the playoffs. Then it got fun.
Kevin Kiermaier gets hit by a pitch to load the bases. Very next pitch, to Willy Adames... plunk. As we've seen, it's not hard to be the first in Rays postseason history to do something, but Adames is their first-ever bases-loaded HBP. He's the second one the Astros have ever issued, after Roberto Osuna plunked Mitch Moreland of the Red Sox, also in Game 3 of the ALCS (two years ago). And it was the first time Rays batters had gotten hit by consecutive pitches since Braves reliever Jonny Venters plunked Matt Joyce and Carlos Peña on May 20, 2012. Hunter Renfroe put the icing on the inning-- and the Rays' 5-2 win to go up 3-0 in the series-- with a pinch-hit double, another first in Rays postseason history. And one more for the record books, it was the Rays' first-ever postseason game where they scored 5+ runs with all of them coming in the same inning. They only did that once in the shortened 2020 regular season, July 28 against Atlanta.
So heading to Game 4, it certainly looked possible that the Rays would sweep the Astros' season right into the proverbial trash can. But Jose Altuve knows something about starting games with a bang. Oh yeah, he did it again. Once again it was only a solo shot thanks to Michael Brantley grounding into a double play immediately before him. But it broke that tie with Albert Pujols by being Altuve's seventh 1st-inning homer in the postseason; Pujols (2004 against the Astros) is the only other player to hit three in one series. Altuve then doubled in another run to make it 2-0 in the 3rd. But you know what hasn't happened in a couple days? Right, Randy Arozarena hasn't homered. And the top of the 4th seemed like the perfect time, especially right after Austin Meadows singled and it's a 2-run shot to tie the game. That's his third game-tying homer of this postseason, most in Rays history (of course), and just the third player to hit three in a single postseason. The others are Alex Rodriguez in 2009 and Albert Belle in 1995.
Altuve would ground into a double play to end the 5th, one of four GIDPs by the Astros in the game. However, this one came after George Springer, who hasn't gotten much air time yet in this series, hit his own 2-run homer to take that lead right back. It was the second time in Houston's postseason history that they'd hit multiple go-ahead homers in the same game off the same pitcher; Carlos Beltran and Jeff Kent took Woody Williams of the Cardinals deep in 2004 NLCS 1. Springer would finish with his 53rd career 3-hit game as leadoff batter, jumping ahead of Altuve's 52. (He's still got a long way to Craig Biggio's 139.) And while Springer's dinger held up for the win, it wasn't without some tension in the 9th. Willy Adames hit a 2-out double to score Joey Wendle, shockingly the Rays' first postseason RBI double when down to their final out. And Aroz went on to another hat trick after that 4th-inning homer; you might remember that he had a dinger and 3 strikeouts in Game 1. He's the first player in MLB history to have two such games in the postseason (for any team, in the same series, in the same season, anything).
We've made a lot of jokes this year about the cardboard cutouts being in their seats in time for the 1st-inning action. And we certainly hope they didn't miss Jose Altuve's 1st-inning antics in San Diego. But back in Arlington, let's hope that the only actual people to see any MLB games this year didn't forget the proper procedures. Because in Game 3 even nine Jose Altuves, which is just shy of 49 feet, by the way, wouldn't have been a match for the Dodgers' outburst. First-pitch single. First-pitch double. Two outs. That seems good. If the Braves can just get Will Smith to end the inning, they will escape with only the 1 run scoring.
So the good news is, Will Smith did end the inning. The bad news is, he didn't do it until his second at-bat. In this at-bat he doubled home another run, leading to Helpful Mound Visit. Whatever that great advice was, it ended with a 5-pitch walk to Cody Bellinger and another Helpful Mound Visit. If only the helpful advice had been, don't give up back-to-back homers to the next two batters, but apparently it wasn't. By the time the third Mound Visit rolls around, Kyle Wright has gotten charged with 7 runs despite getting only 2 outs, and the Braves are having all kinds of bad flashbacks to that 10-run 1st inning they gave up to the Cardinals in last year's Division Series Game 5. Because Wright, and Mike Foltynewicz who started that one, are two of the three starters in postseason history to give up 7 runs and not finish the 1st inning. And the other came as a direct result of that game; the Cardinals advanced to the NLCS where Dakota Hudson promptly had the same line against the Nationals. It's also worth mentioning that one of Folty's runs was unearned, so Wright is the first Braves starter to give up 7 earned runs without finishing the 1st since Craig McMurtry did it against the Cardinals on May 27, 1984.
Grant Dayton gets summoned to replace Wright, which we found humorous only because the Wright Brothers of aviation fame began their career in Dayton, Ohio. Unfortunately, the baseballs aren't done flying either. Corey Seager comes up again and manages to drive in his second run of the inning and advance Mookie Betts to third. Then it got weird. Dayton's first pitch to Justin Turner bounced away and Betts came racing home with an eighth run. And instead the Braves actually challenged the call, admitting that their own pitcher had actually hit Turner, but that by rule would be a dead ball, sending Betts back to third and taking the run off the board. And it worked. Back to 7-0 we go, now with the bases loaded. And yyyyyeah, we sure that was a good idea? Max Muncy grand slam. It's the fifth one in Dodgers postseason history (Enrique Hernandez 2017, James Loney 2008, Dusty Baker 1977, Ron Cey 1977), and it makes the score 11-0. Eleven. Remember that 10-run inning the Braves gave up last year? That was the old record. The last time the Dodgers scored 11 runs in an inning... they weren't in Los Angeles and the Braves weren't in Atlanta. It was August 8, 1954, in a 20-7 rout of the Reds. Their last 11-run 1st inning was also their largest overall inning in team history, a 15 that they also dropped on Cincinnati on May 21, 1952. Wednesday also became the first time the Dodgers had hit 3 homers in any postseason inning, and the first time any team had done it in a 1st.
Hey Grant, how about taking one for the team? Cody Bellinger, leadoff homer in the 2nd. Corey Seager, 1-out homer in the 3rd. Muncy doubles and Bellinger drives him in. By the time the Braves record their ninth out, they've surrendered 15 runs. Wright and Dayton became the first teammates in Braves history (to 1876) to give up 7 runs and 2 homers each in the same game. Dayton joined Seattle's Paul Abbott (2001 ALDS 3) as the only relievers to allow 8 and 3; he was also Atlanta's first pitcher to do it since Craig Skok on July 30, 1978. The one bright spot would be Braves fans getting to know Huascar Ynoa, who went on to pitch the next four innings and give up just one hit. The only other Braves pitcher to do that in a postseason game was Warren Spahn in Game 5 of the 1948 World Series.
Seager and Muncy both ended up with a homer and a double; the only other Dodgers teammates to do that in the postseason were Russell Martin and Justin Turner in last year's Division Series. In Muncy's case, he also walked twice, duplicating his line from that World Series game two years ago where he hit the walkoff homer in the 18th. Only four other players have had multiple 2-XBH, 2-BB games in the postseason: Carlos Beltran, George Springer, Chipper Jones, and Babe Ruth. And for Seager, it sure looks a lot like his Game 2 outing of a homer and a double. The only other Dodgers batter to do that in consecutive postseason games is Roy Campanella in the 1955 World Series.
And as for the 15 runs? Well, thanks to Ynoa's four scoreless frames, the Dodgers did all of that damage in the first three innings off Wright and Dayton and then didn't score again for the rest of the game. They are the first team to reach 15 that quickly, and then stop scoring, since the Tigers posted a 16-2 win over Boston-- in the form of 7-8-1 and then all zeroes-- on June 26, 1946.
Oh hey, we haven't even gotten to Game 4 yet. Let's skip past the pleasantries of trading solo homers again, although this time it was Marcell Ozuna and not Freddie Freeman. Besides, home runs were not the problem in the 6th inning, which might qualify as Clayton Kershaw's "one inning too many" in this case. Instead give us all the doubles. Ronald Acuña started the inning at second base after a single-plus-error, after which Freeman and Ozuna both had RBI doubles to knock Kershaw out. Ozzie Albies greeted Brusdar Graterol with a hit, after which Dansby Swanson doubled home two more runs. Only 12 teams in postseason history have hit 3 RBI doubles in the same inning, and wouldn't you know it, the previous one was the Cardinals in that 10-run inning last year.
The Braves eventually collect 6 runs in the 6th, which lands Ozuna at the plate again to start the 7th. So why not another homer. Yes, that got a ton of references to being the first multi-homer game for Atlanta in the postseason since Chipper Jones in 2003. But it was a different Jones-- Andruw-- who was the last to have 3 total hits, 3 runs scored, and 3 RBI in a postseason game, doing so in the 1996 World Series against the Yankees. The only one before Andruw was in the Braves' immediately-preceding game, NLCS 7 of that same year by Fred McGriff. And three extra-base hits had only been done by four other Braves postseason hitters: Bret Boone (1999), Javy Lopez (1996), McGriff again (1995), and Hank Gowdy (1914). Ozuna also became just the second Braves player to have a multi-homer game in Arlington; that's also Andruw Jones, in a 6-3 win over the Rangers on June 8, 2002.
Bryse Wilson, who got the 10-2 victory once the Braves were done piling up late runs, gave up just the solo homer to Edwin Rios. Kevin Millwood (1999 NLDS 2) and Tom Glavine (1995 WS 6) are the only other Braves pitchers to throw 6+ innings and give up only 1 hit in a postseason game. And look at 10-2... right after 15-3 by the Dodgers in the prior game. It's the first postseason series with an 8-run win by each team since the Oakland/Minnesota Division Series of 2002... but it's also the first time in postseason history those opposing 8-run wins came in consecutive games.
Some of you already giggled when you saw the title of this post because you had the same flashback. And we'd never let a good flashback go to waste. Intermission!
Back at Petco Park, the Astros know a little something about starting games with a bang. Have you had enough of this yet? Because they haven't. Imagine if we said Game 5 featured another 1st-inning homer, the Astros' fourth one of the series. Only seven teams have hit four 1st-inning taters in a series; the Astros are three of them (also 2017 and 2004), and the Rays (2008 ALCS) are another. The 2015 Mets, 2011 Tigers, and 2004 Cardinals round out the list. The only neat wrinkle to this one is that it wasn't Jose Altuve. It was George Springer, seemingly inspired by his go-ahead knock in Game 4, and it happened on the first pitch the Astros saw from John Curtiss. Like so many things Astros-leadoff-related, Craig Biggio hit their only other leadoff homer in a postseason game, taking Jeff Suppan of the Cardinals deep in 2004 NLCS 7. It also allowed Springer to retake the Astros' postseason homer record from Altuve, 19-18, and trailing only Manny Ramirez (29), Bernie Williams (22), and Derek Jeter (20) in MLB history.
Brandon Lowe promptly hit his own solo homer to tie the game, after which Michael Brantley would gave Houston the lead again with a 3rd-inning single. Here we should note that both "starters" are already out of the game as both teams hedge against a Game 6 and the schedule not having any off-days. Curtiss faced just 5 batters and allowed only the home run to Springer, while Luis Garcia gave up 2 walks and hit a batter but came out after 2 innings. He was the first starter in postseason history with that line (0 H but 2 BB and an HBP), and the first Astros starter pulled from a postseason game with a no-hitter still intact. It was the second game in postseason history where both starters allowed no more than 1 hit but neither one saw the 3rd inning. The other was the infamous 2011 ALDS game between the Yankees and Tigers (CC Sabathia & Justin Verlander) that got suspended by rain after only 9 outs.
For each Astros 1st-inning homer there must be a matching Randy Arozarena homer. That happened in the 5th, and it gave him nine games this postseason with at least 1 extra-base hit and at least 1 run scored. The only other players with that many such performances are Alex Rodriguez (2009), Nelson Cruz (2010), and Barry Bonds (2002, 10x). And this time Aroz combined it not with 3 strikeouts, but with an outfield assist to nail Altuve trying to stretch a single into a double. Yeah, by now you're not surprised that's a first in Rays postseason history. And when Ji-Man Choi hits a game-tying homer in the 8th to join Lowe's from earlier, well... no. That's not a first in Rays postseason history. Evan Longoria and Melvin Upton both hit game-tying homers in 2008 ALCS 2 off Josh Beckett. Choi's homer did give Josh James another blown save such as the one he had in Game 3 against the Athletics last week. Only Dave Smith in 1986 has blown multiple saves for the Astros in the same postseason.
You probably know how this ended. In the exact same way that Game 2 of last year's ALCS ended-- with Carlos Correa hitting a walkoff homer. The only other players in postseason history with multiple walkoff homers are Bernie Williams and David Ortiz. The last team with a walkoff win to stave off elimination in the LCS round (i.e., prevent the opponent from winning a pennant) was the 2008 Red Sox, who also delayed the Rays' celebration by at least one more day. The only other Astros batter to hit a go-ahead homer in the 9th inning at Petco was Lance Berkman off Trevor Hoffman on April 2, 2008. And yes, combined with Springer going yard on the first pitch the Astros saw, they were the first team in postseason history to hit a leadoff homer and a walkoff homer in the same game.
Still, however, the Rays are only one win away from the World Series, so surely they'll figure it out in time for Game 6. Well, in a normal year maybe, but the neutral-site setup of this year's LCS round means no off-days and no rest for the weary. There was rest for starters Framber Valdez and Blake Snell in a rematch of Game 1 (not Game 3 as you might see with the off-days). And after combining for a 2-1 game on Sunday, Friday looked much the same, just with the numbers reversed. Snell was notably unhappy about being removed in the 5th inning, maybe because the Rays bullpen gave up five more runs in addition to the two inherited ones that Snell left out there. George Springer would do the initial damage with a bases-loaded single to flip the lead from 1-0 to 2-1. Jose Altuve had a similar play in the opener of the Division Series against Oakland; they are two of the three lead-flipping singles in Astros history after Jason Castro had one in 2015.
Kyle Tucker added a home run in the 6th and a sacrifice fly in the 7th as Shane McClanahan kept giving up base hits. He was the first pitcher in Rays postseason history to allow 5 hits while getting no more than 5 outs, while Tucker became the first player in Astros postseason history with that combo of a homer and a sac fly in the same game. The damage could have been a lot worse after Jose Alvarado walked the bases loaded to start the 8th. However, in a "three true outcomes" special, the next three Houston batters all struck out to keep any more runs from scoring. Three teams in postseason history have "accomplished" three consecutive bases-loaded strikeouts, and two of them are this year; the Dodgers did it in their Division Series with the Padres. The other was the Cubs in 2003 against Atlanta's Mike Hampton.
Manuel Margot did make some effort to earn the Rays another much-cherished off-day, leading off the 7th with a solo homer and then tacking on a 2-run shot in the 8th. He was the 11th player in postseason history to homer multiple times in the 7th or later of the same game, but don't forget, he's pretty familiar with Petco Park as well. He played three full seasons there as a member of the Padres following his MLB debut as a September callup in 2016. And thus he had a pair of multi-homer games at the stadium for San Diego prior to the one Friday for the Rays. Only five other players have done that since it opened in 2004: Jason Heyward, Raul Ibañez, Adam LaRoche, Giancarlo Stanton, and Justin Upton.
So while the Astros are busy becoming the second team in MLB history to force a Game 7 after losing the first three, we still haven't settled things over in the National League either. A.J. Minter was given the odd task of starting Game 5 for the Braves, odd only because he'd never started a game in the regular season yet. Granted, the definition of a "starter" has been devolving over the last few years of "openers" and "bullpen games", but Minter was still the first pitcher in MLB history whose first career start came in the playoffs. And while he was only expected to play the "opener" role, he got all the way through the Dodgers' order while allowing only a double to Justin Turner. And oh by the way, he struck out seven of the other eight Los Angeles batters, putting Minter in rarified air among postseason starters. Only two other pitchers have ever struck out 7+ while allowing no more than one baserunner-- Don Larsen and Roy Halladay, who own the only two no-hitters in postseason history.
However, there was not enough Minter to last the entire game, and things started to turn when Corey Seager homered (again!) off Tyler Matzek in the 4th. But we all know the story of this game, and possibly of the entire series: Will Smith homered off Will Smith. It's already broken the Internet, so we'll just point out that it was the third lead-flipping homer for the Dodgers in a game where they stood to get eliminated; Cody Bellinger (2018 NLCS 7) and Adrian Gonzalez (2016 NLDS 4) hit the others. And after that, nothing else that happened in the game would have mattered anyway, so let's just have Jacob Webb give up three more runs for the final tally of 7-3. Two of those did come on a second homer by Corey Seager, which lofted him into some record books. It broke a tie with Duke Snider (1952), Gil Hodges (1956), and Dusty Baker (1977) for the most RBI in a postseason series-- Seager temporarily has 10 of them-- and it created a tie for the most homers in a Dodgers postseason series with Snider and Steve Garvey (1978). Seager also became the first Dodgers hitter ever to have a multi-homer game in Arlington. And Mookie Betts, in addition to making a shoetop catch that resulted in a strange (9)-2-5 double play on appeal, had 2 hits and a steal on offense. Turns out he did the same thing in Game 2, joining Maury Wills and Davey Lopes as the only Dodgers leadoff batters with two such games in the same postseason.
There's a reason we said Seager "temporarily" had 10 RBIs and also 4 homers in the series. Because, yeah, that lasted two batters. In Game 6 on Saturday, Seager destined us to another Game 7 with a solo homer in the 1st inning, giving him sole possession of the Dodgers' homer and RBI marks for both a single series and an entire postseason. And it wasn't long until Justin Turner also went yard-- two pitches, in fact, generating yet another set of back-to-back homers. Remember that Joc Pederson and Edwin Rios did it in Game 3; the two from this week are the only sets in Dodgers postseason history to happen in the 1st inning.
So yes, the Dodgers are up 2-0 going to the 2nd, but in another rematch of Max Fried against Walker Buehler, the Braves connect for three straight singles to start the inning. And they do nothing. Buehler strikes out two batters and creates the third instance in Braves postseason history of three hits to start an inning, but 0 runs being scored. The others were in 1991 and 1992, both against the Pirates; one involved a double play and the other turned on a forceout at home. Buehler would end up truly "scattering" 7 hits, all singles, and walking zero batters to also give up zero runs. Only three other Dodgers pitchers had surrendered 7 hits but 0 runs in a postseason game, and all of them pitched complete games in the World Series-- Clem Labine (1956), Johnny Podres (1955), and Burleigh Grimes (1920).
The Braves did get one run back in the 7th when Nick Markakis led off with a triple and then Ronald Acuña doubled him around. Those hits came against Blake Treinen, who had just worked two perfect innings and gotten the win in Game 5 on Friday. You're forgiven if you don't know any of the other three Dodgers relievers to give up a triple and a double in a postseason game. Ron Perranoski, who would go on to lead the majors in saves with Minnesota in 1969, and who just passed away earlier this month, did it in 1965; the others are Russ Meyer in 1953 and Hal Gregg in 1947.
All Seven And We'll Watch Them Fall
The more things change, the more they stay the same. We jammed 12 games into 6 days; early in the week, it looked obvious that the Rays and Braves were going to advance, and yet here we are on Saturday night still with nothing settled before the World Series starts on Tuesday. Because we have, for the fifth time in the LCS format (2004, 2003, 1973, 1972), two winner-take-all games still to be played.
Yet by now we kinda have some themes. Like, say, a 1st-inning homer. The only question in ALCS Game 7 was which of our heroes was going to hit it-- Jose Altuve or Randy Arozarena. Altuve did send a long fly ball to center in his turn, but not long enough as Kevin Kiermaier hauled it in. So of course it was Aroz essentially winning the pennant for the Rays early with his 2-run dinger. That second run was compliments of Manuel Margot, who became the second player in MLB history to lead off a winner-take-all game by getting hit with a pitch. The other was all the way back in the 1909 World Series, Bobby Byrne of the Pirates (by Detroit's Bill Donovan). Specific to an LCS winner-take-all game, it was the sixth multi-run homer in a 1st inning, and the first since David Ortiz unloaded on Kevin Brown of the Yankees in 2004. And after his 1st-inning homers in Games 1 and 4, Aroz is one of just four players to hit three 1st-inning homers in a single postseason. If you've been counting, you know that one of the others is Altuve, and another also did it for Tampa Bay, Melvin Upton in 2008. (The member without a connection to this series is Albert Pujols.)
In another repeat moment, Mike Zunino would add a solo homer in the 2nd; you might remember he and Aroz joining the "A-to-Z" homer club in Game 2 of the Division Series round. And once again you have to go back to 2004 to find the first time any team homered in the 1st and 2nd innings of a winner-take-all LCS game; Ortiz was followed by Johnny Damon in that Red Sox/Yankees tilt. Both of Saturday's homers came off Astros starter Lance McCullers, who became the first pitcher in LCS history (1969) to give up 2 homers in a winner-take-all game and also take the loss. Yet, repeating his line from Game 2, McCullers also struck out 7+ Rays around those two homers; he is also the first pitcher in postseason history to have multiple 2-HR, 7-K games in the same series.
Zunino would add the Rays' final run with a sac fly in the 6th, and guess what, that just happened yesterday also. It wasn't Zunino, but Kyle Tucker of the Astros, who had both a homer and a sac fly in Game 6. That was the eighth occurrence this postseason of a player with that stat line; the previous record for such a thing had been three, and there were a total of eight players who did it in the entire decade from 2010-19. Only one other postseason series had it happen in back-to-back games, the 1998 ALDS between Boston (Nomar Garciaparra) and Cleveland (David Justice).
The Astros were kept off the board once again by Charlie Morton, who you probably already know is the first pitcher in history to get a win in four winner-take-all games. Only two others have done it for multiple teams as Morton has; they are Francisco Liriano and Randy Johnson. Morton was also on the mound for the Astros' 2017 Game 7 against the Yankees and gave up just 2 hits in that game as well. Since the pennants moved to a postseason activity in 1969, Morton is the first pitcher to give up 2 or fewer hits in multiple pennant-winners. Carlos Correa did make it interesting with a 2-run single after the Astros loaded the bases in the 7th, such that he finished the 2020 postseason with 17 RBI. He's the tenth player all-time-- and first since Eric Hosmer in 2015-- to do that, but he's the first of those 10 players to rack up 17 RBI without reaching the World Series.
And speaking of reaching the World Series, San Diego got its major-league team as part of the same expansion that necessitated the LCS round in 1969. As a result, only one other pennant has been won in San Diego, the Padres' own from 1984, with Goose Gossage on the hill for the final out.
Ring My Bellinger
Our last loose end is the matter of who the Rays will meet when they get to Arlington. And for a couple of innings, Dustin May made it seem as if it may be the Braves. In the strange world of trying to "bullpen" a Game 7, May was slated to be used as an "opener", and he opened by throwing four straight balls to Ronald Acuña. That was only the fourth leadoff walk in a winner-take-all LCS game, and the Braves have been involved in three of them. John Smoltz, who was of course calling Sunday's game for TBS, issued the previous one to Pittsburgh's Alex Cole in 1992, while Lonnie Smith drew one for the Braves the year prior. The other was Catfish Hunter to Baltimore's Al Bumbry in 1973.
May, however, didn't stop there. He promptly threw "ball 5" to Freddie Freeman. And 6. And 7. And 8. That was the first time in postseason history that the first two batters in a winner-take-all game had been given free passes, and in the era of complete pitch counts (1988), only one Dodgers hurler did it in the regular season on eight pitches. Terry Adams walked Tony Womack and then Danny Bautista of the Diamondbacks on September 28, 2001. Marcell Ozuna at least saw two strikes, but he hit one of them for a single, the first RBI base hit to occur in a WTA game before the first out since Craig Biggio's leadoff homer in 2004.
After Dansby Swanson homered in the 2nd, it was time for Will Smith to declare "Independence Day" from the Dodgers' deficit. Max Muncy's double put runners at second and third, and Smith drove them both home with a single up the middle. We'll call this one the B-side of Smith's big hit on Friday, but both of them qualify as multi-run hits that either tied or took the lead in a potential elimination game. Only one other batter in Dodgers postseason history has two such hits; it's Steve Garvey, and his came four years apart in different series.
It was now Gonsolin's turn to issue two walks, and Austin Riley's turn to hit the single that looked like it might start another Braves rally. They'd had just three other go-ahead hits in any winner-take-all game in their postseason history, and they had two in the first 4 innings on Sunday. Except, in a particularly-egregious case of the TOOTBLANs because it's Game 7, Swanson and Riley both get tagged out in a fielder's choice double play. In postseason history we found only one other double play that started with runners on second and third (not first, so no one is forced), where neither out was on the batter. And naturally it was in 1909.
That left the Braves with only a 3-2 lead, and Enrique Hernandez may come off the bench to say something about that. Only three other batters had launched a pinch-hit homer in any winner-take-all game: Chris Heisey (2016), Troy O'Leary (2003), and David Justice (2001), and Hernandez was the first Dodgers pinch hitter with a tying or go-ahead homer in any postseason game since... yep, Kirk Gibson in 1988. Julio Urias now comes into the game to keep the Braves from scoring again; he not only does that, he ends up not allowing them a single baserunner. More on that after Cody Bellinger essentially claims the pennant with a monster home run in the 7th. Only one other player in Dodgers history had smacked a go-ahead homer in the 7th or later of a WTA game, and that one also led to a pennant: Rick Monday against the Expos in 1981.
Urias then needed only 10 pitches to blow through the Braves in the 9th, and when Bellinger caught Austin Riley's fly ball to claim the pennant for good, Urias had also joined an elite club. Only three pitchers have thrown 3+ perfect innings and gotten the win in any postseason game, and the other two weren't clinchers. Francisco Rodriguez did it in Game 2 of the 2002 World Series against the Giants, and you have probably already gotten the other one-- because what beats three perfect innings but nine perfect innings?
Will this be the year we see another perfect game in the World Series? The Dodgers are back in it. Only one way to find out: On to Arlington.
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