The Astros can’t hit, fall Behind 3-1.

Gordon Liang

10/30/2021

The Astros have yet to win a World Series in a clean year. This year was the year and barring some miracle, their greatness will remain unproven. You can pin 2019 on a fluke loss to the 93-win Nationals but you cannot pin two seven-game series losses on flukes. Rather, you can join every other fan in questioning whether the Astros really had what it took to win in 2017. The numbers say that they did (per a report from the LA Times) but the numbers also say that the 2021 Astros are the best offense in baseball and they haven’t shown it these past two games.

The Astros simply haven't hit well this series. Their only outburst came in game two with help of a faulty Braves defense. Since then they’ve scored two runs in their last two games going 0-10 with Runners in Scoring Position.

With great pitching from Zack Greinke who looked vintage tonight, the Astros seemed poised to sneak a win in tonight despite only having a two run lead. The Braves had other thoughts.

Down 2-0 with a chance for the Astros to escape a jam, Austin Riley lined a base hit off of Phil Maton to Yordan Alvarez to cut the lead in half. Maton finished the inning with a looking strikeout of Travis d’Arnaud. The Astros were still nine outs away from evening up the series until Cristian Javier, who’d been lights-out all postseason, surrendered two bombs on both sides of the field. Suddenly the Astros, who were tasting victory in 2019 and tasting victory tonight, are left hungry for a second win. The Braves find themselves one win from the same upset that the 2019 Nationals pulled..

The Astros will put the southpaw Framber Valdez on the bump tomorrow to avoid elimination. Valdez was very rocky in his game one start. Another one will eliminate the Astros tomorrow.

Altuve Continues to have the Longest Middle Finger in Existence

As noted in previous pieces, Altuve won’t flip his bat. He’ll flip you off with his bat. His bat is his middle finger and like he did with Trevor Bauer, the Yankees and Ryan Tepera, he used it to flip off Braves organist, Matthew Kaminski, tonight. As Altuve stepped in for his third at bat of the game Kaminski decided to poke some fun at Altuve’s height…. or lack thereof. Kaminski played “It’s a Small World” as Altuve stepped into the box. A few pitches later, Altuve sent a baseball to the direction of Kaminski for a homerun to put Houston up two runs to none.

“Well, that one backfired!” Kaminski posted on Twitter.

Kaminski played “I’m Sorry” by Brenda Lee in Altuve’s next at bat according to Chandler Rome. Altuve struck out in that at bat.

Bregman Becomes a Liability

Alex Bregman hasn’t had a good postseason. He’s had an even worse World Series. Bregman has one hit this series and it had an 18% hit probability according to StatCast. Yet, through many missed at bats, he continues to hit third in the order. As fate would have it, Bregman was due up to hit in the ninth with the season essentially on the line and the Astros down by one. The representative for “Breggy Bomb Salsa” did not represent well. On one pitch, he was the second out.

Bregman may soon find himself shifted down the lineup but with Aledmys Diaz’s elite defense this year, the smart move statistically would be to put Diaz at third base and allow Bregman to pinch hit late in the game. Diaz has produced eight Outs Above Average this season while Bregman has zero.

“I thought about [tinkering with the lineup]. I’ll let you know tomorrow when I make the lineup,” Manager Dusty Baker said after the tough loss.