"It starts with me." After falling to 3-for-22 since the start of the ALCS, Alex Bregman took the blame for the Astros' struggles with RISP. https://t.co/U8FaPfvWWw — Jake Kaplan (@jakemkaplan) October 23, 2019 HOUSTON — The Nationals’ decision to carry only 11 pitchers on their World Series roster telegraphed their strategy. Like they did in their NLCS sweep of the Cardinals, they would try to work around their shaky bullpen by leaning on the same six pitchers for a vast majority of their staff’s innings — their four starters and relievers Daniel Hudson and Sean Doolittle. Their reliance on their starters to get 21 or more outs in every game makes it imperative for the Astros to get to their bullpen as early as possible. That is a difficult task on its own, as Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Patrick Corbin and Aníbal Sánchez form an elite rotation. But the key to the series for the Astros is clear. In their 5-4 loss in Game 1 on Tuesday night, they executed the first part of the plan by working counts against Scherzer and getting him out of the game after only five innings with a pitch count of 112. Yet they didn’t capitalize on enough opportunities against the Nationals’ bullpen, which makes their Game 2 performance in the early innings against Strasburg all the more crucial. Struggles with runners in scoring position have plagued the Astros throughout the postseason. In Game 1, they were 3-for-12 in such situations. That was despite their compiling 10 hits, which matched their postseason high from Game 2 of the ALDS. "It starts with me. I’ve been terrible this postseason," said Alex Bregman, who was 0-for-4 and struck out three times in a game for the first time all year. "I need to get in the video room, get in the cage, figure it out and figure it out quick because we’re facing another good pitcher (on Wednesday)." Bregman was the only hitter in the Astros’ vaunted top seven not to get a hit in Game 1. Since the start of the ALCS, he is 3-for-22 with a double and eight walks. He drew a walk in his seventh-inning plate appearance against Tanner Rainey, who was forced into action only because of Scherzer’s short start, but lamented the middle-middle fastball he fouled off on the 3-2 pitch. "I’ve just been horrible mechanically," Bregman said. "I’ve been off time. I’ve been in between. I’ve been taking fastballs for strikes, taking sliders for strikes, swinging at bad pitches out of the zone. I better take my bat home, sleep with it and figure it out." Six of the Astros’ 10 hits in Game 1 came via the trio of George Springer, Yuli Gurriel and Yordan Alvarez. Five of their team’s hits were against Scherzer, whose pitch count rose quickly: First inning: 26. Second inning: 22. Third inning: 21. Fourth inning: 27. Fifth inning: 16 "Offensively, we passed the baton on to the next guy a lot of times today," Springer said. "Sometimes you just have to give credit where credit’s due. He did an unbelievable job limiting the runs after the first inning. You move on." In the seventh, Springer homered for a major league-record fifth consecutive World Series game, dating to 2017. He also doubled to the right-center-field wall in the eighth. Though it appeared he might’ve been able to reach third base if he hustled out of the box, Springer was adamant he wouldn’t have been able to because Kyle Tucker had to wait at second base to see if he would have to tag up. "If I had gone to third, I’m out," Springer said. "I’m out for sure." That Springer was on second base and not third loomed large when José Altuve whacked a fly ball to right field. Ultimately, the Astros had plenty of other opportunities in which they could have tacked on runs earlier. They simply failed to capitalize. "Anytime you’re up against a really good starting pitcher, you want to take advantage of every single opportunity. You know it’s going to be a tall task," Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. "But I liked the at-bats. I even liked our at-bats with runners in scoring position. We had a little bit of bad luck. We did chase a little bit, as you’re going to. Keep preaching, Give yourself as many opportunities as you can. The big hit eluded us a couple of times; a couple times it didn’t." Hinch took solace in the fact that the Astros made the Nationals use a lot of their pitching in Game 1, including presumptive Game 4 starter Patrick Corbin. Their hitters saw each of the Nats’ two go-to late-inning relievers and also their next best in Rainey. Those are the same relievers they figure to face in any close game. Can the Nationals show the Astros the same two or three relievers over and over again and get away with it over seven games in nine days? It’s a risky but probably necessary strategy by Washington, and its success or failure could dictate the outcome of the World Series.
The problem is the Nationals did not play all that well. Not sure if I've ever seen Scherzer as wild.
I’m afraid we have run up against a buzz saw peaking at the right time. Going to take a JV like performance. 1 run on 2 hits with 12 k’s in 8 innings to win tonight. And tonight is a must win. You lose both a Cole and JV game at home and your obituary is being drafted.
No way Springern wouldnt recognize that miss and see his 3rb base coach waiving Tucker home. Springer would of been on third.
I don’t see the Astros winning if the situational hitting doesn’t improve. Houston is clearly the better team, but they’re slumping at the wrong time, and Washington is playing really good ball. You can’t expect Cole and Verlander to carry you every night out, and we are stranding runners and wasting opportunities left and right. Yesterday was unfortunate because it’s a game they easily could have won. Scherzer wasn’t anything special and I doubt we will get another game like that from him next time. Really a wasted opportunity. Hopefully they make up for it tonight.
Astros are good enough in every facet to win no matter what kind of game it is. They had an unusual fifth inning and were one double play away from winning that game. They did this against the Rays too. The Nationals aren't the Yankees. The Astros are the Warriors and the Nationals are the Blazers. There's a reason they're the biggest WS favorite in a decade.
Yeah, that was another weird part of that game. I feel like Scherzer managed to inadvertently pull off a version of "effectively wild." He was giving the Astros every reason to look to take pitches. Yet, I also didn't see too many pitches creeping back over the plate to actually hit and drive in runs. So throwing a ton of balls and a massive number of pitches strangely worked out for him.
Scherzer wasn't great, but he wasn't terrible. He still had 7 strikeouts in five innings. The Nationals also played well. Turner saved a run defensively with a great stop, Rendon beat out a close double play to keep a big inning alive, Soto hit some good pitches really well and they made the most of their opportunities. They may have not played their best possible game, but most of their mistakes wound up not being consequential. Likewise the Astros weren't terrible, but they also weren't great. They had 15 base runners and some hard hit outs. The had some bad base running (which honestly is normal for them), and their defense was not as good as normal. Their mistakes and close plays wound up being more consequential.
Astros are due for a 9 run game. Hitting is contagious. It's time hits start spreading like a pox in that line up.
I'm still completely ****ing baffled and furious about the 2-1 total ****ing meatball fastball he stared at in the 9th.
Bad night for Cole and Bregman. I guess Yordan is getting back to form. Good ole Reddick and his productive at bats. They're always good for the weak ground balls or pop ups, followed by the helmet/bat toss. Is anyone else surprised he somehow had a .275 BA during the reg season? For some reason I feel more confident when one of our catchers is batting. Let's go Astros!!! Including Reddick in case that poster gets upset I'm talking bout him.
It's taken uncharacteristic performances by a lot of the main guys in the lineup for this postseason to be a struggle. The Astros overall talent has still brought them to the World Series. If guys like Bregman, Yordan, etc. were just average, these series wouldn't be that close. Astros also shooting themselves in the foot with bad base running, poor situational hitting, lack of full effort, etc. has made this a struggle as well. I still feel good about the team eventually winning this thing but they have been very frustrating this postseason. Just an odd playoff run for them with all the ups and downs.
I thought an interesting stat was that the Nationals pitchers get batters to chase more pitches than any other team, but the Astros are better at not chasing pitches than any other team. Definitely seemed liked the Astros won out on that. I don't know if I've ever seen so many 0-2 counts turn into walks. That being said, Scherzer uncharacteristically made several pitches that even the worst hitters wouldn't chase. Anyway, I agree with the points others are making. While his outing looked downright ugly, maybe the chaos somehow worked to his advantage. His mistakes were wild pitches out of the strike zone that resulted in walks, rather than mistakes over the plate that resulted in homeruns.
