The Cycle, Issue 101: LCS Travel Day #1
Recapping the first two games of the two League Championship Series, and previewing the next three
In this issue of The Cycle . . .
As the League Championship Series switch cities, I recap the first two games and look ahead to the next three. Plus some good news for minor-league players.
American League Championship Series
Astros 1, Red Sox 1
Game 1
Despite having ample rest coming into this game, neither starting pitcher was sharp. Both Houston’s Framber Valdez and Boston’s Chris Sale got the hook with two outs in the third inning, each having already thrown more than 60 pitches. By that point, the Red Sox had a 3–1 lead, thanks in very large part to centerfielder Kiké Hernández. With two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the second, Hernández made a spectacular catch on a sinking liner by Michael Brantley that he initially misjudged. He then led off the top of the third with a game-tying home run onto the train tracks in Minute Maid Park’s left-centerfield. The heart of the Sox’s lineup then added two more to bounce Valdez with the help of a Jose Altuve error and a Hunter Renfroe RBI double.
The bullpens settled things down from there until the bottom of the sixth, when, with Tanner Houck on the mound for Boston, Astros centerfielder Chas McCormick reached on a one-out single, and Altuve made amends for his earlier error with a two-run, game-tying home run into the Crawford Boxes. An inning later, with Hansel Robles on the mound, Carlos Correa hit a 350-foot pop fly down the left-field line that also settled into the Crawford Boxes to break that tie (though he pimped it like it was Hernández’s 448-foot blast in the third).
The Astros plated a leadoff walk to Yuli Gurriel in the eighth, which allowed them to absorb Hernández’s second solo homer of the game in the top of the ninth and pull out a 5–4 win.
Did You See That?
The Astros may have won Game 1, but the star of the game was Hernández, who twice made eye-popping catches on balls he misjudged (here’s the second one), and went 4-for-5 with a double and two homers, compiling 11 total bases (one more than in a cycle). Hernández is now the only player in AL/NL history to have 10 or more total bases in three separate postseason games. He did it in Game 1 on Friday night. In Game 2 of the Division Series against the Rays he went 5-for-6 with three doubles and a homer, also good for 11 total bases, and in Game 5 of the 2017 NLCS, the game that clinched the Dodgers’ first pennant in 29 years, he hit three home runs, including a grand slam, totaling 7 RBI and 12 bases against the Cubs at Wrigley Field.