The War for Texas is two games in. The Rangers have won them both, in Houston. Despite being bent a lot more in American League Championship Series Game 2 than they were in Game 1.
That's what a 4-run first, an arduous wriggle out of a bases-loaded/nobody out fifth-inning jam, and a gutsy 4-out save does for you. Even on a day when Yordan Álvarez recovers from an apparent virus and a 3-strikeout Game 1 to hit 2 bombs.
Álvarez turned out trying to play Game 1 through an ailment that left him unable to hold food down or avoid headaches, not to mention unable to sleep very much. When it came time for Game 2, Álvarez still knew something his teams didn't until game time: he was going to play Monday no matter what, and nothing short of house arrest would stop him.
And if only the Rangers hadn't jumped all over Astros starting pitcher Framber Valdez in a 4-run first inning, Alvarez's 2-homer Game 2 might, maybe, have become something beyond just another tale he can tell his eventual grandchildren.
But it still took a large effort by the Rangers to keep the Astros from overthrowing them and sweeping the first Houston leg of this ALCS. Large enough to prove that you can bend, but not quite break these Rangers, who held on tight to win Game 2, 5-4.
It took 10 pitches and a throwing error from Valdez to put the Rangers up 4-0 before the game's first out was recorded. With Nathan Eovaldi starting for the Rangers, Ranger fans could have been forgiven if they thought the rest of the game might, maybe, be something of a leisurely game.
Marcus Semien and Corey Seager opened by hitting the first pitch of each plate appearance for back-to-back singles, Seager's a shuttlecock that landed before Astros third baseman Alex Bregman running out could reach it. Then it took Valdez pouncing upon Robbie Grossman's dead-fish tapper back but bobbling it a moment before throwing wild past first, allowing Semien to score and leaving second and third.
Then came Adolis García lining a single the other way to right to score Seager, and Mitch Garver pulling a line single to left to score Grossman. Finally, Valdez nailed an out striking Josh Heim out swinging on three pitches, but Nathaniel Lowe replied almost immediately to follow by sneaking a base hit through the left side of the infield to score García.
That wasn't exactly in the Astros' game plan. Valdez finally struck Josh Jung out and got a fly out by Leody Taveras to end the inning. It made Álvarez's first homer, a yanking drive into the second deck behind right field in the bottom of the second, a crowd-pleaser, but a mere interruption. Eovaldi went from there to sandwich a strikeout between 2 ground outs to third, the first of which took a grand throw by Jung from the foul side behind third base to get Chas McCormick by a step.
Nor was it in the Astro plan for Valdez to last only two and a third innings, after Heim led off the top of the third with a blast into the Crawford Boxes for the fifth Rangers run.
"I thought the quality of my pitches were good," the righthander said through his interpreter postgame. "I think they were good and they maybe got a little bit lucky. There were a couple of balls that they didn't hit well that fell for base hits a couple times. I tried going as far as I could."
Valdez has a few more things to learn about luck. These Rangers prefer to make their own luck. They might attack with aplomb at the plate but they're going to turn your mistakes into disaster, too. You'd better not call them lucky, either, when you're the poor soul who mishandled and then threw away a potential double play grounder that might have kept the Rangers' first-inning damage down to a small dent.
Bregman nudged the Astros a little closer back with a leadoff bomb ringing the foul pole in the fourth, for Eovaldi to shove his way out of a no-out, bases-loaded jam in the fifth by striking pinch-hitter Yainer Díaz and José Altuve out back-to-back before Bregman beat one into the ground toward third — where Jung, whose over-run of Jeremy Peña's bouncer loaded the pads in the first place, threw him out at first by three steps.
Michael Brantley pulled the Astros back to within a pair with a sixth-inning RBI double. Josh Sborz relieved Eovaldi for the seventh and got the side in order, including a called third strike on Altuve to end it. Aroldis Chapman went out to pitch the eighth and, after a Bregman fly out to center and a Tucker ground out to second, the first pitch he threw Alvarez would be his last of the day, Álvarez lining it hard and fast into the lower right field seats.
"You can never count us out," McCormick said of his Astros postgame. "We don't ever quit." That was true enough to compel Rangers manager Bruce Bochy to get Chapman out of there after Alvarez's second launch and ask Jose Leclerc for a 4-out save.
Leclerc shook off back-to-back walks to get McCormick to force José Abreu at third for the side, then dispatched the Astros in order in the ninth — the hard way. Peña's deep fly to right collapsed into an out at the track. Díaz's grounder toward third was stopped by Jung on the slide before Jung threw him out. Altuve's fly to center was only deep enough to land in Taveras's glove for the side and the game.
"We've had some chances to win some games," said McCormick, painfully aware the Astros had several grand Game 2 chances laid waste. "Usually we do come through with some big hits. We did earlier in the year and, this time around, we haven't come up with that big hit."
Indeed. The Astros have been 1-for-9 with men in scoring position all ALCS so far. And, out of their 24 postseason runs thus far this time around, Álvarez is responsible for 18 of them, either scoring them or sending them home. But even he can't thwart the Rangers by himself. Not the way these Rangers do things. Not when they can make a 2-homer game by him a sidebar.
"We're jumping on teams early," Jung said postgame, "and that helps us settle in. Our pitching has been outstanding. You can't ask for anything more than what they've given us."
Eovaldi has the knack of transforming from a solid regular-season pitcher to a Hall of Fame-level pitcher in the postseason. Even if he wasn't quite at his pure best in Game 2, he still had enough to keep the Rangers well ahead of the game by the time his outing ended. He now has a 2.87 ERA and a 2.60 fielding-independent pitching rate in 9 career postseasons.
"Something just clicks for him," his catcher Heim said postgame. "I'm not sure. Same preparation. Same mentality that he has had all year. Just something about big games that he loves."
It may yet prove to be something Ranger fans will love for eternity and beyond. The Rangers are halfway to the World Series, still unbeaten this postseason, and going home to their own inviting playpen in Arlington. They were far better at home than on the road in the regular season, but now they've won 7-straight postseason contests, with 6 coming on the road.
"We'll get 'em in Texas," Astros manager Dusty Baker vowed after Game 2. Ahem. You weren't exactly out of Texas in Games 1 and 2, sir. You've been gotten in Texas so far.
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