Just look at this win expectancy graph.
Source: FanGraphs
As you can see, Game 2 of the World Series, which the Houston Astros won over the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-6, was a little bit all over the place.
The Dodgers were cruising to victory, and then the Astros charged back and took the lead. The Dodgers mounted a comeback of their own, and then the Astros surged ahead again. The Dodgers tried to rally once more, and brought the tying run to the plate with two out in extras. There was no keeping up with it.
The decisive blow was landed in the top of the 11th, when George Springer took an 89-mph Brandon McCarthy slider for a ride with a runner on, hitting a two-run bomb that won the game.
Now, this tied series shifts to Minute Maid Park in Houston for the next three games with the designated hitter in play. That means there are likely more fireworks to come when activity resumes Friday. Until then, here are your takeaways from Game 2.
The Astros’ 10th
Let’s talk about a couple half innings here. Magnificently bearded Dodgers reliever Josh Fields had the outing of his nightmares Wednesday, entering a tie game in the 10th inning and giving up lasers all over the yard.
First it was Jose Altuve — flirting with a rare 0-for night — who took a couple pitches outside the zone before crushing a 97-mph Fields fastball deep into the night to put his team up by one.
The next batter? Carlos Correa, who waited only one pitch before driving a home run of his own 427 feet into the left-field bleachers.
The batter after that? Yulieski Gurriel, who didn’t wait around at all, ambushing a first-pitch fastball and shooting it to left-centre for a double.
That was it for Fields. He had a fine season pitching out of the Dodgers bullpen, working to a 2.84 ERA over 57 appearances. But all relievers have blow-up outings, and for Fields it occurred at the most inopportune time.
Of course, this Astros offence, which seems to feed off itself, was due to break out at some point. Houston’s first 58 batters of the World Series mustered only one extra-base hit. The next 13 — culminating with Gurriel’s double — had six.
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The Dodgers’ 10th
It began with baseball’s most interesting man, the non-stop fun ride that is Yasiel Puig, who hit an absolute cannonball of a lead-off home run off Astros closer Ken Giles immediately following Fields’ implosion in the top half of the inning.
It continued with Logan Forsythe, who is considerably less interesting and fun, drawing a two-out walk off Giles before moving to second on a wild pitch.
And the night’s second dramatic comeback was completed with Enrique Hernandez, who worked his way into a 3-1 count before singling to right to drive Forsythe in and tie the game.
All those things happened in a delirious, madcap, unbelievable 10th inning that merely served to set up Springer’s heroics in the 11th.
Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you
What a night for Astros starter Justin Verlander, who was in complete control of this game, until suddenly he wasn’t.
Verlander snow plowed his first trip through the Dodgers order, going nine up, nine down on only 32 pitches, 27 of them fastballs. He walked the leadoff hitter in the fourth, but refused to face any more than the minimum, getting a force out at second and a double play to end the inning.
Verlander carried that no-hitter through his first two batters of the fifth. But the third batter was Joc Pederson, who Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he started Wednesday because he liked how the outfielder matched up against Verlander’s velocity.
Well, Roberts was partially right. Pederson got to Verlander, but it wasn’t against his high-90s fastball. It was Verlander’s 88-mph slider, left up and on the plate, that Pederson hammered over the wall in right-centre field for his team’s first hit of the night.
His team’s second hit came an inning later — it, too, a home run, this time off the bat of Corey Seager, who turned around a 97-mph Verlander fastball and lobbed it over the left-field wall. Thanks to a Chris Taylor walk moments earlier, that long ball counted for two, meaning Verlander had surrendered more runs than hits.
And that was how Verlander’s night ended: six innings, two hits, three runs. He was as overpowering as ever Wednesday, save for those two pitches to Pederson and Seager. Baseball’s a cruel sport a lot of the time.
Rich Hill’s uneven night
Wednesday night was a bit of a battle for Dodgers starter Rich Hill, who didn’t look nearly as dominant as Verlander but managed to give up only a lone run in the third.
That happened when Alex Bregman lined a first-pitch fastball to left-centre with runners on the corners to cash the game’s first run. (Things actually could have been much worse, as Taylor made an ill-advised diving attempt for Bregman’s single and missed it by a mile, only to have the ball bounce up, off the brim of his cap, and directly to his left-fielder, Pederson, which spared the Dodgers centre-fielder the indignity of turning a run-scoring single into a two-run triple or worse.)
Hill had issues again in the fourth and wouldn’t see the fifth, as Roberts chose to play the percentages. With Houston starting its third trip through the order, and a run of right-handed hitters awaiting, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts lifted the left-handed Hill at only 60 pitches, turning to Kenta Maeda, who’s held righties to a .214/.257/.351 line over his career.
It turned out to be a prudent move, as Maeda retired three right-handed hitters in a row — Springer, Bregman and Altuve — to work a clean inning.
That set the stage for the rest of LA’s dominant bullpen to carry this one home, or so Roberts thought. Brandon Morrow appeared an inning earlier than normal, in the seventh, and looked as commanding as usual. But when he allowed a lead-off double to Bregman in the eighth — despite a terrific diving effort in the left-field corner by Puig — Roberts didn’t hesitate to go to his closer, Kenley Jansen, for a six-out save attempt, the second of his career.
We use the word “attempt” because the save was not converted. Bregman eventually scored on a Correa single back up the middle, snapping a streak of 28 scoreless innings for the Dodgers bullpen, and Marwin Gonzalez squared up a 94-mph cutter in the ninth, driving a game-tying solo shot 398-feet over the centre-field wall.
That all seemed pretty dramatic at the time. But after the 10th and 11th, who can even remember it?