(SportsRadio 610) - On a day in which Justin Verlander didn’t have his best stuff, Yordan Alvarez willed the team to an 8-7 victory, avoiding dropping the franchise's first game of a division series since 2001.
After yielding a three-spot in the top of the second-inning, giving the Mariners a commanding 4-0 lead, Verlander sent the Mariners down in order in the third, for the only 3-up-3-down inning in a laborious yet short outing for the veteran.
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Alvarez, who came into the postseason hot, slashing .397/.477/.781 with a 1.258 OPS including six home runs and 15 RBI has last 21 games of the regular season, came to the plate in the home-half of the fourth.
With the Astros in need of a spark, Alvarez tried to start a fire, scorching a 96mph fastball to left, scoring Chas McCormick and Jose Altuve, cutting the deficit in half at 4-2.
Alvarez finished 3-for-5 with 5 RBI, including two-runs scored in the game.
After two quick strikeouts in the top of the fourth, Verlander surrendered three consecutive hits, including a 383-foot homer in to shortstop JP Crawford and a run-scoring double to first baseman Ty France to give the M’s a 6-2 lead.
The Astros needed something or someone to stop the bleeding as it was very clear JV just didn’t have it Tuesday afternoon.
Trapping a Eugenio Suarez fly ball off the scoreboard in left, Alvarez couldn’t catch it off the rebound, as it fell to the ground.
He scooped it up and threw a missile to Martin Maldonado at home plate, who tagged France for the final out of the inning.
It seemed as though, whenever Verlander and the Astros needed something good to happen, Alvarez made something happen.
In the home half of the fourth, Yuli Gurriel, who had entered Tuesday’s game with just one home run over his last 76 games, hit a towering shot into the Crawford boxes to send a surge throughout the ballpark and again cut into a Mariners lead that was then 6-3.
A Suarez homer in the Mariners seventh, off of reliever Cristian Javier, made it a 7-3 ballgame.
In the Astros eighth, after a Jose Altuve single to right, Alex Bregman blasted a 403-foot shot to centerfield to again slice into the Mariners lead, breathing life into Minute Maid Park, that had flatlined multiple times Tuesday.
Yet, faith had been restored, as the Astros continued to show that resilience that has won them trips to five consecutive American League Championship Series.
The Astros just needed a base runner in the ninth to give them hope in a rough spot.
Rookie David Hensley, pinch-hitting for Mauricio Dubon, worked a one-out walk after a helluva eight-pitch at bat.
With different players stepping up to make plays Tuesday afternoon to continue to give hope to the Astros, in a game that seemed hopeless, Jose Altuve stepped to the plate and ripped the first pitch he saw.
Foul.
Three pitches later, Altuve struck-out swinging, bringing up Astros rookie sensation, Jeremy Peña.
Maybe it would be his time to shine and deliver in the clutch, as his predecessor at shortstop, Carlos Correa so often did during his seven years as an Astro.
The rookie didn’t disappoint, setting the table for one of the most feared hitters in the game.
Peña, lined a slider back up the middle to give Alvarez the stage, with runners on first and second and two-out in the bottom of the ninth.
Mariners manager Scott Servais changed pitchers, opting for left-handed starter Robbie Ray to face Alvarez instead of the righty, Sewald who began the inning.
Alvarez, always in the box with a purpose. Swung for the fences on the first pitch 94mph sinker he saw, fouling it back.
Unthinkably, Ray came back with another sinker and Alvarez crushed it into the right-field stands, 438-feet away, sinking the Mariners in game one of the ALDS.
Alvarez’s walk-off homer came on a 93 mph sinker. He hit .268 against that pitch this season with an expected batting average of .308 against the pitch, including just an 8% whiff rate.
By far the lowest rate of any pitch he saw all season.
There’s a lot of baseball to be played in this series, and Astros manager Dusty Baker has seen a lot over his combined 44 years in the big leagues as a player and manager.
He ranked Alavarez’s home run near the pinnacle of things he’s seen in baseball over the years.
“Boy, that’s so close to the top,” Baker said. “I don’t know what the top is, but that’s very, very close to it.”
So long as Alvarez stays healthy, he’s sure to have an encore in store when given the chance or when Dusty and the Astros need it.
Shaun Bijani has spent the last 16 years covering the Houston sports scene for SportsRadio 610. Follow him on Twitter @ShaunBijani.
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