HOUSTON -- There was very little that Kike Hernandez didn't do in Game 1 of the ALCS Friday night against the Houston Astros.
He had a four-hit night, including two solo homers, with two RBI and two runs scored.
In center field, Hernandez was a magician, racing into to make a shoestring catch off Michael Brantley to save two runs in the second and ranging deep to the right-center gap to take extra bases away from Kyle Tucker in the fifth. Finally, in the eighth, he made a strong throw to the plate that nearly nabbed Yuli Gurreal, who had tagged up on a flyout to center.
But there was one thing that Hernandez couldn't do: push the Red Sox to a victory. Boston dropped the opener of the series 5-4, though Hernandez could hardly be faulted for that.
"We lost,'' shrugged Hernandez, "so I mean...it would have been a lot cooler if we won the game. So right now, I don't have a lot of time to sit down and think about the game or what I did.''
But others weren't so reluctant to put his performance into context.
"Enrique,'' noted Alex Cora, using Hernandez's full first name, "is en fuego.''
"I haven't seen a hitter this hot in the last week than Kike Hernandez,'' gushed Houston manager Dusty Baker.
(Indeed, Baker was in the midst of an in-game live interview with the Fox broadcast team when Hernandez crushed his first homer, leaving Baker to humorously exclaim, 'Oh, Lord,'' as the ball left the bat.)
"He always keeps us in the game,'' said Chris Sale, "and I don't care if he's 0-for-4 or 4-for-4. His energy, what he does on the field...There's not much to say about it. He's been incredible. He's been a guy we can lean on and I think he enjoys that. It's fun to see. We lost the game tonight, there's no doubt about that. But he gave us a little spark at the end (with a homer in the ninth, his second) to look forward tomorrow.''
It's not as if Friday night represented some out-of-nowhere level of excellence for Hernandez. Over his last four games, dating back to Game 2 of the ALDS, has six runs scored, 13 hits, four doubles, four homers and eight RBI. His Game 1 star-turn made him the first player in postseason history to collect as many as 13 hits in the span of four games and just the second to total eight extra-base hits in four games in the same postseason. And he became just the fourth player to post multiple four-hit games in the same postseason. The others? Two current Hall of Famers (Robin Yount and George Brett) and another sure to one day gain entrance (Albert Pujols).
Taking all his accomplishments into account, and putting aside, if only for an instant that his team didn't get the outcome it wanted, Hernandez acknowledged that he's enjoying another trip to the October stage.
"I mean, I'm having a lot of fun,'' he said. "It's a blast. It's October and these games tend to be a lot of fun -- a lot of adrenaline, a lot of electricity in the crowd. These games are a lot of fun and the fact that I'm playing well adds on to it a little bit.''
Hernandez is no stranger to the postseason experience, having made multiple appearances while with the Dodgers. But with that club's penchant for platooning and moving players around the diamond, Hernandez didn't have the same outsized role he now enjoys with the Red Sox.
Even if his role wasn't as big, the exposure to playoff baseball was undoubtedly beneficial.
"There's nothing that compares to playing in the playoffs until you play in the playoffs,'' he noted. "The fact that I was able to be in the postseason six years when I was with the Dodgers, it was huge. We played some very important games (including three trips to the World Series), with time, you kind of get a little bit numb towards the moment. I would say that being able to stay under control during these games has a lot to do with the fact that I played a lot of playoff games before.''
But none, it's safe to say, as special as the one he played Friday night.