Astros beat Red Sox to advance to World Series
HOUSTON – Capping a decade like no other in baseball history, the Houston Astros are returning to the World Series, aiming to win the club’s second championship, one that would shine a little bit brighter than the original.
From shameless losers to industry innovators, from dominant champions to cheating chumps, the Astros took the next step in their unprecedented arc Friday night, getting a second dominant performance from an unheralded starter in as many games to defeat the Boston Red Sox, 5-0, and capture the American League Championship Series in six games.
They advance to face either the Atlanta Braves – back here at Minute Maid Park – or the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series with Game 1 on Tuesday evening.
“We feel like we deserve this,” says second baseman Jose Altuve, whose eighth-inning home run in Game 4 turned the series trajectory, “and we’re together in this.”
A date with the Dodgers would only intensify the grim feelings associated with the club’s electronic sign-stealing scandal, which boosted the 2017 champions all season and through a bitterly-contested seven-game slugfest with the Dodgers.
Since Houston’s organizational indiscretions – from top baseball executive Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch, both fired in January 2020, down to the players – were revealed in November 2019, the club’s lone championship has been rightfully sullied. Its protagonists have been scorned from coast to coast and in this season during which fans returned to ballparks, booed mercilessly from the Bronx to Chavez Ravine.
Another title won’t soothe all the deep-seated bitterness outside Houston. But it would certainly legitimize the baseball greatness of Astros old and new.
“It’s extra special, after everything we’ve been through as a team, as a family, we stuck together, we fought back and we’re here, man,” says shortstop Carlos Correa. “We’re a great team and we’re just proud, once again, to be in the World Series.”
In Game 6, it was the leaders of the new school who carried them to the pennant.
ALCS MVP Yordan Alvarez, acquired from those Dodgers in a fateful trade, drove in the game’s first run with a double and later tripled and scored another run, capping a startling final two games in which he mashed six hits, five for extra bases.
Right fielder Kyle Tucker, picking up the offensive slack once carried by former Astro George Springer, iced the game with an opposite-field, three-run homer, his fourth of this postseason.
And rookie starter Luis Garcia, chased ignominiously from Game 2 by a then-unstoppable Red Sox offense, carried a no-hitter for 5⅔ innings as he and four relievers completed a thorough vexing of Boston’s bats.
When Ryan Pressly recorded the final out, the crowd of 42,718 at Minute Maid – one place the Astros can be sure they’re loved almost unconditionally – erupted in celebration of the pennant and anticipation of what comes next.
There was also a fair share of relief for a turnabout their club managed in an ALCS with wild momentum swings.
Garcia recorded just three outs and gave up five runs in Game 2 at Minute Maid Park Oct. 16 before exiting with a knee injury that the club…
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