Houston – Jordan Alvarez Homer smashed at the end of the game, three games with two wins in the ninth Ruby Rayruining the Seattle Mariners’ strategy of using the Cy Young Award winner in a rare relief role and catapulting the Houston Astros to an 8-7 win Tuesday in the opening game.
Falling behind in every game after a bad start Justin VerlanderThe AL West Astros champ outnumbered the rising star Julio Rodriguez and the Wild-Card Mariners at the end to start a better five-section streak.
Houston was down 7-5 when the bullish rookie hit David Hensley One reached at nine as Seattle approached Paul Swald He patted his jersey with a pitch.
hit Sewald Jose Altove Before Jeremy Pena Confused by one field to center to chase Sewald.
Then Mariners manager Scott Servis made a bold move to bring Ray, who started Saturday in Toronto in the AL Wild Card Series, into a left-handed match with Alvarez. Ray, who won the Cy Young Championship last year with Toronto, has only made six times in his career and hasn’t saved a single professional player.
Alvarez, who hit 37 players in the regular season, sent Ray’s second floor deep into the seats in the right field to start a raucous celebration with his parents in the stands.
“I think it was one of the most special moments of my career,” Alvarez said. “They’re there and only the city of Houston know we’re a team that never gives up, so just being able to make that happen was one of the most special moments of his career.”
His blast was the second home run in post-season history by a team to come to an end, according to ESPN Stats and Information Research. The other is Kirk Gibson’s home run away from Dennis Eckersley to lift the Los Angeles Dodgers to a win in the first game over the Oakland Athletics at the 1988 World Championships.
The off-land speed was 116.7 mph, the fourth-fastest distance of the 546th home run in the Statcast era and the highest ever in the post-season.
Service said the decision to use Ray was something they had thought about.
“It was something going into the series we were in, looking at our rotation, where we were heading, talking to Robbie about using him off the playing field as a bullet, so to speak, for this kind of scenario, you know, bringing the leftist against Alvarez, on the Although Alvarez is one of the best hitters in the league.
“But we did talk about her getting into the series. We talked about her before kick-off today. I looked at her in the seventh inning and said, ‘Hey, this can happen.'” “So this was the plan going.”
Houston captain Dusty Baker, who managed Service while with the Giants, refused to guess his former player.
“If I take him out, it’s going to look great…Next time Robbie Ray can win, but we won today,” Becker said.
The Mariners jumped Verlander for six runs in just four rounds to take an early lead, 6-2. Yuli Gouriel Homer hits solo in Houston 4th before Eugenio SuarezA single shot in the seventh inning extended Seattle’s lead to 7-3.
Two-run Homer Alex Bergman turning off Andres Munoz He cut the lead to 7-5 in the eighth inning to form the dramatic finish.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.