The Red Sox could smell blood in the water.
Just one inning into Game 4 of the ALCS, Alex Cora and his club found themselves in a familiar spot — teeing off against a beleaguered Astros pitching staff that entered such a pivotal game with next to no bullets remaining in the chamber.
Through a perfect storm of injuries and ineffectiveness, Houston turned to Zack Grienke in hopes of changing the narrative regarding the ‘Stros’ personnel on the mound.
Instead, it was the same ol’ script for Dusty Baker and Co.
Buoyed with some hope after Alex Bregman smacked a four-seamer from Nick Pivetta into the Monster Seats in the first, the Astros were once again felled by their pitching, with Greinke — who posted a 12.36 ERA over his previous three regular-season starts — immediately handing the lead back to Boston in the bottom of the frame by relinquishing a two-run bomb to Xander Bogaerts.
That moonshot from the Sox shortstop might have been the lone hit that Greinke coughed up, but after Greinke issued his third walk in just 1.1 innings of work — Baker was forced to yank yet another starter off the mound and place his hopes on a largely spent bullpen.
As Baker proclaimed following Monday’s Game 3 defeat, the Astros once again seemed to be mired in a “Groundhog Day” of misery on the mound.
Well, at least for a time.
Of course, such sentiment changed in both dugouts — and in a crowd of 38,010 — over the following three hours of action, with Houston stunning a raucous Fenway Park by crossing the plate eight times in the final two frames en route to an eventual 9-2 blowout win.
If you’re searching for the conduit that sparked the Astros’ resurgent response and knotted this ALCS at two games apiece, the easy answer is home-plate umpire Laz Diaz and his fickle strike zone.
Well, that’s at least going to be the culprit that most Sox fans will find solace in pointing fingers at — rather than assessing their own club’s misgivings after letting a prime chance to go up 3-1 against Houston slip through their grasp.
Did Diaz’s dreadful night at the dish impact Tuesday’s game? Of course. But this game should have been decided long before Diaz failed to ring up Jason Castro in the top of the ninth.
For as much as Boston carried out its usual M.O. in terms of knocking Houston’s starter out of commission and landing body shots early — it failed to execute when the time came to deliver that (potentially series-ending) haymaker, with the Sox ending the night with just five hits and 11 total men left on base.
After Bogaerts’ home run, the Sox only connected on two more hits until the ninth inning. But both of those base knocks put runners in scoring position with just one out — with Christian Arroyo legging out a triple in the fourth and Bogaerts drilling a double in the following frame.
And yet, in both situations, the Sox failed to add some insurance — with both Arroyo and Bogaerts stranded at their spots and Boston still holding on to a slim 2-1 advantage
“We had chances,” Alex Cora said. “I think we had chances early in the game, too, but I mean, we’ve been good for so long that you are going to have games like that. But approach-wise, seven walks is great. We grind some at-bats, right? … Overall, we didn’t get hits. We didn’t produce too much, but I think the approach was good.”
Boston might have shot itself in the foot by failing to make the Astros pay with runners in scoring position (0-for-9 in the loss), but the Astros also avoided another offensive salvo from the Sox thanks to both Brooks Raley and Christian Javier — who ate up 3.2 innings of work following Greinke’s early exit to keep Boston’s bats from building some breathing room.
"That's one of the biggest performances I've seen this postseason,” Astros reliever Kendall Graveman said of Javier’s outing (3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 3 K). “For him to go out there and give us a little length was something that we needed. ... I think he kind of flipped the switch a little bit of just being in attack mode.”
Following repeated failures by Boston to tack on some runs, an Astros retort seemed inevitable — with Jose Altuve eventually snapping an 0-for-12 skid by jumping on a first-pitch sinker from Garrett Whitlock and drilling it into the Monster seats for a a game-tying solo blast in the eighth.
Diaz failing to give Nathan Eovaldi a strike on that curveball to Castro in the ninth means that the ump has his fingerprints on this game, no question. Given new life, Castro promptly gave the Astros the lead for good — lacing a split-finger fastball into center that made it a 3-2 ball game. By the time the dust had settled, the Astros built themselves a seven-run cushion, and the chance to return home to Minute Maid Park later this week.
"This is one of the great things about baseball,” Baker said. “I mean when you're dead, seemingly laying in the water and things aren't going good, then all of a sudden — boom, boom, boom — and you got seven runs. And that's what they've been doing to us this whole series. And we're capable of doing that as well.”
The talk of robo-umps and blown calls are destined to clog the airwaves and TV channels all morning and afternoon on Wednesday, as expected.
It’s a frustrating, hair-pulling exercise that seems to plague every series at some point when critical calls fall to the discretion of personnel outside of the players on the field/diamond/ice/gridiron/etc.
But to vent all of your frustrations toward Diaz and the umps is ignoring perhaps an even more frustrating truth.
On multiple occasions earlier in this contest, the Sox had the Astros right where they wanted them. And with one more swing of the bat, Cora’s club could have taken the field on Wednesday in a Game 5 with a chance to punch their ticket to the World Series.
Instead, the Sox will now hand the ball to Chris Sale in a 2-2 series stalemate — looking to turn the tide against a re-energized Astros roster, and put a frustrating night at the ballpark in the rearview mirror.