This series between the Astros and Rangers it’s not over at 2-2 – just as it wasn’t over when it was 2-0 for the Rangers and they had just beaten the Astros twice at Minute Maid Park. Of course, it’s not over, it’s October in baseball, where the narrative can swing the other way with a single swing of the bat. But the Rangers are discovering, in real time, what many people have discovered about the Astros over seven straight ALCS appearances (including two World Series titles):
You can knock off the Houston Astros, but good luck knocking them out.
As much success in October as the Rangers had in Games 1 and 2 – establishing their 7-0 playoff record at that point – and they’re also set for the next two games with Jordan Montgomery and Nathan. With Eovaldi starting, they are the last to discover what it means to be among the champions.
The Rays were one of the teams that eliminated the Astros during that seven-year span. They did so in the 2020 ALCS, with the Astros operating in the immediate shadow of their sign-stealing scandal. The Rays edged Dusty Baker’s team 3-0, and then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, the Astros didn’t just get back up. They won the next three games to force a Game 7, give yourself the chance do what the Red Sox did to the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.
The Rays ultimately survived Game 7, 4-2. In that moment, they knew the collective heart of a hurting Astros team that had produced just a 29-31 record during the COVID-shortened season. The Rays knew they had fought, and they had gone the distance.
It’s always good to remember what Baker said after the Astros tied this series in three games:
“You have to love this team. Well, some people hate this team. But you have to respect this team.
Sure, teams have had Houston this time of year. The Nationals came back from a 3-2 loss in the 2019 World Series to win in seven. The Red Sox beat the Astros in six games in the 2018 ALCS. But many of those Astros will always remember how this one could have ended if Andrew Benintendi did not save match 4 – and kept the Astros out of this one at two games – with a diving, two-out, bases-loaded catch Alex Bregman in the bottom of the ninth, one of the great October defensive plays of all.
Now the Astros have bounced back as they try to become one of the few postseason teams to come back after losing the first two games of a seven-game home series. It is now the Rangers who have the chance to eliminate them. Texas won the first two games. But against the Astros, it has nothing to do with trying to get the final two. It’s like they say in “The Wire”: you’re coming for the king, you better not miss him.
There, the Astros were present in Game 4, in full, led by José Altuve, who is not just one of the greatest October players of all time, just one of the greatest baseball players of all time, period. There was Bregman, a leadoff player, who got everything going for his team with a two-run triple in the top of the first against Andrew Heaney. And when Yordan Alvarez — who has as much Mr. October in him as Bryce Harper, and maybe more — doesn’t blow the doors off Game 4 with a grand slam, José Abreu does so with a three-run shot one batter later.
There’s the old football phrase about the end zone and how, when you get there, you’re supposed to act like you’ve been there before. It’s the Astros, in another month of October for them.
“(Abreu) loves his big moment,” Altuve said at the end. And no one among them understands the big moments better than he and Alvarez, who have now become the first teammates to hit at least four homers and 10 RBIs in their team’s first eight playoff games.
Once again: it’s not over after four games, nor after two. Montgomery has been the star pitcher this postseason for the Rangers, outscoring the great Justin Verlander in Game 1. Then in Game 2, Eovaldi, who the Astros remember very well from that ’18 ALCS when he was still with the Red Sox, restored his own October bona fides with the way he showed up for Game 2 Whatever happens in Game 5, Bruce Bochy will happily and confidently give the ball to Eovaldi for Game 6.
Best of seven is now best of three in the Texas State Baseball Championship. The Rangers still have a chance to eliminate the king. We’re about to find out, though, if they’ve already tried their best. And failed.
