Blowout in Game 3 as the Phillies shut out the Astros
Houston Astros 0 Philadelphia Phillies 7, 1st November 2022.
Houston Astros 0 Philadelphia Phillies 7, 1st November 2022.
It was just past the witching hour of midnight here in the UK when the tone of this sporting evening was set in Philadelphian stone. The Houston Astros 2nd baseman and first batter of the evening, Venezuelan Jose Altuve, is somewhat of a team leader and whilst going through an end of a regular season slump was finding a semblance of form here in the World Series. He nearly always swings at the first pitch he receives and he did so last night under the lights and amid the raucous sounds enveloping the Phillies home of Citizens Bank Park. He doesn’t tend to “swing for the fences” to employ an old ancient baseball metaphor, rather a more horizontal plane to beat the infield and let the ball scamper into the outfield whilst he takes first base. His job now done, he now relies upon the teammates behind him to do likewise or grind out a walk, anything that ensures they “keep the line moving” to use another well worn baseball phrase of yore and with batters filling the bases and the line moving, your team scores an early run, a bunch of runs perhaps, and the first shot across the bows of their opposition has been inflicted, a die cast, and an outcome set in stone.
Altuve’s first swing at the pitching of Phillies starter, and fellow Venezuelan countryman Ranger Suarez, crushed the ball into the gap over 1st base and before the right field portion of the outfield. It looked a sure fire base hit but Nick Castellanos’ sliding catch mere centimetres from the turf robbed him of the hit and was an almost exact replica of the catch held by Castellanos that sealed the Phillies 10th inning Game 1 win in Houston 4 days ago. Of more immediate concern was the simple fact that had Castellanos misjudged last night’s catch and the ball trundled to the outfield instead, Altuve would’ve secured 3rd base comfortably if not tried for home, and the game’s first score of the evening. But the tall American outfielder came up trumps, again, and with a deafening roar circling this sporting Philadelphian amphitheatre desperate for overdue success in the biggest baseball series of them all, their pitching hero of the evening spun a gem as their sluggers swung for the fences, and the underdog bit their master squarely on the bum!
In simple terms, it was an evening of single sporadic base hits (Astros) versus booming home runs (Phillies), 5 respectively for each team, but even my description of the underdog’s runs coming from their “sluggers” isn’t entirely accurate as the home town Phillies runs came equally from 1 through 9 of their batting order. First up was Phillies talisman Bryce Harper with a humdinger of a home run off the pitching of Astros starter Lance McCullers Jr that scored 2 in the Phillies 1st inning after McCullers had walked opening batter Kyle Schwarber. Two more “big bombs” followed in the 2nd inning as Alec Bohm (batting 6) and Brandon Marsh (batting 9) hit solo home runs to extend the Phillies lead to 4–0, and with legendary, Hall of Fame starting pitcher John Smoltz stating unequivocally on co-commentary for Fox TV that the Phillies were “sitting on the off speed pitches” of Lance McCullers, number 9 hitter Brandon Marsh drilled a single in the 5th inning for his 2nd hit of the evening, number 1 hitter Kyle Schwarber crushed a typically emphatic “no doubter” to score both himself and Marsh, Rhys Hoskins made it back-to-back home runs and McCullers night was done along with that of his Astros team.
7–0 at the bottom of the 5th inning doesn’t tell the entire tale of a dominating evening and Game 3 win for the Phillies as the shut out was set in motion after 5 strong innings pitched from their starter, Ranger Suarez. The 27 year old Venezuelan would concede just 3 sporadic and solitary hits (one of which was a fortuitous “swinging bunt” from Astros Yuli Gurriel in the 2nd inning) on his way to a baseball entitled “Quality Start” and 4 strike outs from 5 shut out innings pitched. Suarez would hand over pitching duties to his bullpen for the remaining 4 innings and Connor Brogdon, Kyle Gibson, Nick Nelson and Andrew Bellatti all pitched scoreless innings to ensure the normally explosive Astros were completely shut out.
On the other side of the baseball and sadly for the Astros, in a losing cause, starter McCullers was summarily chased from the game after conceding 7 runs from the 5 booming home runs that cleared the fences of Citizens Bank Park before their legendary manager and man with the toothpick forever in the side of his mouth, Dusty Baker, called upon the hard throwing Ryne Stanek to stop the bleeding of runs and usual starting pitcher Jose Urquidy to throw 3 excellent shut out innings. But his misfiring batters couldn’t back up the excellent innings pitched in relief (and desperation) and simply couldn’t plate any runs in response to the Phillies opening salvos.
Following yesterday’s rain out/postponement, last night was the first of three consecutive playing days in this years World Series (weather permitting) and with the home team Phillies now 2–1 in front in this best of 7 series, can they achieve the seeming impossible and wrap up their first World Series title in 14 years come Thursday night? At the start of the series I had the heavy favourite Astros winning in 5 (now impossible) whilst my sporting heart said the Phillies in 6. This is still very possible but would see the heavy underdogs having to return to Houston for Game 6.
Can they achieve the ridiculous impossibility of being crowned World champions on a Thursday night under the lights and in front of their passionate fans inside Citizens Bank Park?
Time will tell.
It always does.
Postscript quotes from Game 3 (from www.mlb.com)
Phillies 1st baseman, Rhys Hoskins:
“Hitting itself is a contagious thing without the crowd,” Hoskins said afterward in the Phillies’ clubhouse, where the fog from the club’s celebratory smoke machine still hung in the air. “You throw in the crowd and the noise and the cheers, and I think it just makes it even more contagious.”
Astros starting pitcher, Lance McCullers Jr:
“I got beat, man,” McCullers said. “They hit a lot of solid pitches, I thought. At the end of the day, we got beat pretty bad, and I got beat up pretty bad.”
Phillies talismanic leader, Bryce Harper:
“Just walking into the ballpark, just being back home, I think is such a momentum swing for us,” Harper said. “We all come in here and we’re ready to go and we’re excited to get on the field, because we know they’re going to show up and there’s going to be 46,000 people here screaming and yelling and going crazy.”
Thanks for reading. Please feel free to delve into the cave of wonders that is my archives here or linked below are the three current articles on the World Series hence far, including some rambling musings as the rain fell and cancelled last night’s encounter:
A rainy night in the Evil Empire
Conversations with the ghost of Hunter S Thompsonmedium.com
Framber Valdez spins a gem as the Astros level up the World Series at 1–1
Philadelphia Phillies 2 Houston Astros 5, 29th October 2022.medium.com
Phillies take Game 1 on a wild night in Houston
Philadelphia Phillies 6 Houston Astros 5, 28th October 2022.medium.com