The defending champion Houston Astros have fallen into an 0-2 hole against the Texas Rangers in the ALCS, thanks to a 5-4 Rangers win in Game 2 Monday afternoon. The Rangers, who took Game 1 on Sunday night, were hot out of the gates to start game 2.
Texas scored four first-inning runs and eventually got out to a 5-1 lead before hanging on for a one-run victory. Below are six takeaways from Game 2.
The Rangers got to work quickly to suck the air out of Minute Maid Park by rallying before the Astros even recorded an out. Through five batters, the Rangers collected five singles and scored three runs. After a strikeout for the first out in the inning, they plated a fourth run with yet another single.
Jonah Heim hit a home run in the third and this was the extent of the Rangers' scoring in Game 2. Four runs in the first, one in the third and that was it. It was enough for the victory, albeit barely.
Astros starter Framber Valdez, who was amazing last postseason, struggled again in less than three innings of work.
Dusty Baker is one of the few managers in the postseason who isn't overly aggressive at pulling his starting pitchers. That isn't what happened, here, either. Valdez got beat up. His own defense didn't help his pitching and the bottom line is he just didn't play well enough for his team.
Valdez exited having allowed five runs on seven hits in his 2 2/3 innings. Four of the five runs were earned, but Valdez was charged with two errors on this play that opened the door to a multi-run Rangers rally in the first.
Valdez has struggled at home after throwing a no-hitter in early August and we can add another game to that list. In his last five Minute Maid Park starts, he has an 8.53 ERA.
This was Valdez's fourth playoff start in which he failed to make it out of the third inning, but the other three came in 2021 before he was fully established as a frontline starter.
Despite jumping out to a 4-0 and then 5-1 lead, the Rangers found themselves in a really rough spot late in the game. Yordan Alvarez homered with two outs in the eighth inning to cut the lead to 5-4, spurring Rangers manager Bruce Bochy to go to his closer, José Leclerc. Leclerc then walked the first two batters he faced to create quite the dicey situation.
Chas McCormick grounded out to third to end the threat, though Rangers third baseman Josh Jung heightened the drama by initially bobbling the ball before catching it with his bare hand and stepping on third to end the threat.
Leclerc got a 1-2-3 ninth, despite two flies in the vicinity of the warning track.
The Rangers are now 7-0 in the playoffs this season, an even more remarkable streak than it sounds when considering only one of those games was played at home. They've truly been road warriors. They are on the brink of history, too. Here are the longest winning streaks to start the postseason in MLB history.
1. 2014 Royals: 8 straight wins to begin postseason
t2. 2023 Rangers: 7
t2. 2022 Astros: 7
t2. 2020 Braves: 7
t2. 2007 Rockies: 7
t2. 1976 Reds: 7 (entire postseason)
The game had a chance to be completely turned on its head in the bottom of the fifth inning. Michael Brantley and Chas McCormick singled to start the frame against Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi. Then Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña sent a grounder to third that Josh Jung couldn't handle for an error. That meant the bases were loaded with nobody out in a 5-2 Rangers lead.
It should be noted that at this point, a good number of managers would've pulled the starter. Bruce Bochy elected to stick with Eovaldi and he struck out Yainer Diaz and Jose Altuve before getting Alex Bregman to ground out and end the threat.
Eovaldi also got in trouble in the sixth inning and allowed a run before working out of it. He ended with three runs allowed on five hits with one walk against nine strikeouts in six innings.
With a two-homer effort in Game 2, Yordan Alvarez -- who has been battling an illness during the ALCS -- now has six home runs in six playoff games this season. This ties Giancarlo Stanton (2020) for the most home runs a player has hit in the postseason through six games. Carlos Beltrán (2004) and Ken Griffey Jr. (1995) hit five homers in their first six games and Juan Gonzalez (1996) hit five in his team's four playoff games.
After going 39-42 in the regular season at home, the Astros are now 1-3 at home in the playoffs. They were 51-30 on the road in the regular season and went 2-0 in Minnesota in the ALDS. Perhaps the Astros can spin their chances of winning this series as good since three of the possibly five remaining games would come on the road.
The series shifts to Arlington's Globe Life Park for Game 3 on Wednesday. The Astros need to win four out of the five the rest of the way to avoid elimination. It's an uphill battle. Teams taking a 2-0 lead in the LCS in MLB history have gone 31-4 in the series and the road teams that took a 2-0 series lead are 13-1 (that one came in 2020, at a neutral site, too, when the Dodgers came back to beat the Braves in seven games).
The matchup appears to be Cristian Javier for the Astros with Max Scherzer getting the ball for the Rangers. Javier had a rough regular season after a breakout 2022 campaign, but he gave up only one hit in five scoreless innings in his ALDS start (he walked five, but struck out nine). He has a career 1.91 playoff ERA.
It wasn't known if Scherzer would be back for the series, but the Rangers announced his return for this Game 3 start in the afternoon before Game 2.
The Rangers took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series with a tight win over the Astros on Monday. Texas got a quality start from Nathan Eovaldi, and Houston came up short despite two homers from Yordan Alvarez. The scene shifts to Arlington for Game 3, which is scheduled for Wednesday.
Jung makes a nice sliding grab on Díaz and fires to fire. The Rangers are one out away from a 2-0 series lead. It's up to Altuve.
On a Peña line drive just shy all of the wall in right. Sheesh.
Leclerc is staying in. He threw 12 pitches last inning.
Here we go. 5-4 Rangers going to the bottom of the ninth.
Rangers up 5-4. Peña, Díaz, Altuve coming up, Bregman if anyone gets on.
The Rangers get a runner in scoring position with no outs. Pressly walked Tavares (the No. 9 hitter) and then threw a pitch to the backstop to move him to second.
To state the pathetically obvious, the Rangers could greatly use an insurance run here in the top half of the ninth.
McCormick hit a grounder to third that Jung scooped -- and bobbled -- then stepped on third for the force out. The Rangers will take at least a one-run lead into the bottom ninth. Those two walks ensure Altuve will bat again.
Now Brantley walks. Leclerc has thrown nine pitches and one strike.
Leclerc walks Abreu on five pitches. The Astros have the tying run on base and the go-ahead run at the plate.
With two outs in the eighth and the Rangers up 5-3, Houston slugger Yordan Alvarez went deep for the second time in Game 2:
That Aroldis Chapman slider wasn't in a terrible spot -- the low and outside corner of the zone -- but Alvarez can do big damage from just about any location. This one left the bat at 110.5 mph and went 385 feet. As the caption above notes, yes, that's Alvarez's sixth home run in as many games this postseason. For his career, Alvarez now has 12 career home runs in 53 postseason games.
Besides making Game 2 a one-run affair, Alvarez's clout chased Chapman from the game and forced Bruce Bochy call upon José LeClerc for a four-out save opportunity.
Bochy comes to get Chapman. José Leclerc will be asked to get a four-out save. He's pitched in every game this postseason.
Yordan. Again.
Here's another game in which it feels like the Rangers need another run.
Chapman coming in to face Bregman, Tucker, and Alvarez in the eighth.
1-2-3 seventh for Sborz. Bregman-Tucker-Alvarez next inning. I guess that's Chapman's inning?
Josh Sborz in for Rangers. He had awful numbers in the regular season, but he's thrown well in the playoffs and Bruce Bochy has come to trust him.
That cuts it to 5-3 Rangers. Eovaldi might's gotten squeezed a bit on ball four to Alvarez earlier in the inning, but it was borderline. I wasn't sure Alvarez would score all the way from first, but he made it.
Eovaldi recovered to strike out McCormick and strand Brantley at second. He's thrown 91 pitches in six innings. He's probably done? Then again, he will make his next start with extra rest given the schedule, so maybe Bochy asks Eovaldi to start the seventh?
Either way, the Texas bullpen will be a factor tonight, and the lead is down to two. The Rangers would be wise to tack on another run or three. Feels like this game won't end 5-3.
To my eye, Eovaldi is taking a bit longer between pitches than he was earlier in the game, which can be a fatigue tell. Guessing his day will end soon.
Looked like Eovaldi got squeezed a bit on ball four to Alvarez.
Trailing 5-2 in the fifth, the Astros loaded the bases against Texas starter Nathan Eovaldi thanks to a pair of singles and an error by Rangers third baseman Josh Jung. In such situations, the batting team averages 2.31 runs for the inning. Bake the score and the inning, and the game is essentially a coin-flip -- a 50.7% chance to win the game for Texas. Eovaldi, however, pitched in a pinch and did so to great effect:
So that's a strikeout of pinch-hitter Yanier Diaz on a curve, a strikeout of Jose Altuve on a splitter, and a 5-3 groundout by Alex Bregman -- a challenging slice of Houston lineup. So Eovaldi took what was, as noted, basically a 50-50 win expectancy and kept the score at 5-2 lead going into the sixth. That outcome brought the Rangers' chances of winning Game 2 (and taking commanding 2-0 lead in the series) all the way back up to 78.5%. Clutch pitching, that. This is one of those "file it away" sequences that will look even bigger in retrospect if the Rangers indeed go on to win this ALCS.
Kyle Tucker is batting barehanded. He's trying everything to break out of this slump.
Bregman grounds out. Astros had the bases loaded and no outs, and did not score. That's some job by Nasty Nate.
Altuve strikes out. It's down to Bregman.
Díaz chased a breaking ball off the plate. Now it's Altuve and Bregman with the bases loaded.
Yanier Díaz pinch-hitting for Maldonado. He didn't pinch-hit Díaz for Maldonado with the bases loaded in Game 1.
The bases are full of Astros with no outs. Josh Jung couldn't come up with Peña weak grounder.
Brantley and McCormick single to open the fifth. Jeremy Peña is up representing the tying run.
