The Rangers came into the comfortable confines of Minute Maid Park and destroyed the Astros 9-2, a game that was close until Adolis Garcia ripped a grand slam in the ninth inning. So, the two teams will play a final Game 7 Monday night in Houston, a series where no home team has won a game thus far.
The Astros have struggled mightily at home pitching and hitting, and if Bryan Abreu is indeed suspended for Game 7, it leaves the Astros pretty short in the bullpen as well. Here are our thoughts on a really tough Game 6 loss.
Home field disadvantage.
What is it about Minute Maid Park? The Astros were below .500 at home this season. So far in the postseason, they are 1-3 in downtown Houston. It is a house of horrors for the home team. It is as if the Astros (with a couple notable exceptions) suddenly forget how to hit, pitch and field. It’s one of the strangest things we have ever seen. Consider in the Astros’ 10 playoff games (half at home, half on the road) they have scored 14 runs at home and 35 on the road.
Unfortunately, Game 7 will be where they seem to play their worst. They will need to overcome their significant home disadvantage to move on to the World Series. If they do, and they play the Phillies, they would be the road underdogs, for what it’s worth.
Kyle Tucker has been bad…really bad.
It is important to note that Tucker has never been a good postseason player. For his career, he’s slashing .238/.318/.393 with an OPS of .711 in postseason compared to .272/.345/.507 and an OPS of .852 in the regular season. In the playoffs, he has 50 strikeouts in 61 games. It’s awful. But this year, yikes. He is hitting just .143 and slugging .229 with a paltry .531 OPS. For someone as talented as Tucker, it’s borderline shocking.
To make matters worse, he has struggled in the field as well. He’s had a couple hits go over his head and one critical moment on Sunday night when he had a chance to rob the Rangers of a home run, but he mistimed his jump. It’s been just a miserable October for the Astros All Star right fielder.
Framber Valdez giving up home runs.
In 31 starts this season, the Astros lefty starter gave up 19 home runs. Those came in 198 innings pitched. This postseason in three games and 12 innings pitched, he’s surrendered four, two of them Sunday night. His ERA in these playoffs is 9.00. For one of the best ground ball pitchers in baseball, he is giving up a ton of long balls. On Sunday, he wasn’t terrible, but one of our keys was Valdez keeping the ball in the ballpark and he just didn’t do that.
Dusty Baker loses his touch.
We have found ourselves at odds with the Astros manager’s on-field decisions on a number of occasions this year, but up until Game 6, he seemed to pull all the right strings for this team. Then came Sunday. In addition to opting for Rafael Montero and Ryne Stanek when the game was still close, he inexplicably pinch hit Jon Singleton with the bases loaded in the eighth.
One can only surmise the choice was because Singleton was the last lefty on his bench and he wanted a lefty against the right-handed Rangers pitcher. But, as we have seen time and time again throughout baseball, a good pitcher trumps a mediocre hitter (and that’s being generous to Singleton) no matter what side of the plate they hit from. Baker had both Yainer Diaz (he pinch hit first in the ninth when the game was basically over) and Chas McCormick on the bench, but went with Singleton. Just bizarre.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
