Speechless. The Astros took Game 6 by a 7-4 score to force a Game Seven after being down 0-3 in the Series. First Pitch is at 7:37pm Central. Lance F. McCullers is on the mound against Charlie Morton.
at 8-4 the houston astros are now guaranteed to finish the postseason with a winning record so y’all are quite welcome to suck it
— Ulysses S. Cocksman (@USCocksman) October 17, 2020
I know people have given me a lot of credit, but I don't deserve any of it. [The players] deserve it, by their hard work, by their perseverance.
Yeah, now complain about exercising his 2021 option, idiots.
*SI's "betting" "expert" said the Rays would win Game 6.
*Teams that were up 3-0 in an LCS or World Series (full disclosure: Thanks to this SB Nation post for doing most of the heavy lifting. Also, counting this 2020 ALCS, there are 37 series represented here. Apparently there are 39, so I'm missing two, but I'm way too tired to try to find them...)
Won 4-0: 1914 Boston (WS), 1927 New York Yankees (WS), 1928 New York Yankees (WS), 1932 New York Yankees (WS), 1938 New York Yankees (WS), 1939 New York Yankees (WS), 1950 New York Yankees (WS), 1954 New York Giants (WS), 1963 Los Angeles Dodgers (WS), 1966 Baltimore (WS), 1976 Cincinnati (WS), 1988 Oakland (ALCS), 1989 Oakland (WS), 1990 Oakland (ALCS), 1995 Atlanta (NLCS), 1998 New York Yankees (WS), 1999 New York Yankees (WS), 2004 Boston (WS), 2005 Chicago White Sox (WS), 2006 Detroit (ALCS), 2007 Colorado (NLCS), 2007 Boston (WS), 2012 Detroit (ALCS), 2012 San Francisco (WS), 2014 Kansas City (ALCS), 2015 New York Mets (NLCS), 2019 Washington (NLCS),
That's 27 series in which a team went up 3-0 in a Best-of-Seven series that wrapped up in four games.
Won 4-0-1: 1907 Chicago Cubs (WS), 1922 New York Giants (WS)
Super-weird.
Won 4-1: 1910 Philadelphia (WS), 1937 New York Yankees (WS), 2016 Cleveland (ALCS), 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers (NLCS)
Four series were wrapped up after the opponent got a Thank You Win before falling.
Won 4-2: 1998 San Diego (NLCS), 1999 Atlanta (NLCS),
Prior the 2020 Tampa Bay Rays, only two late '90s NL teams got pushed to a Game 6 in MLB History after being up 3-0.
Won 4-3: N/A
Hmmm.
Lost 4-3: 1 - 2004 New York Yankees (ALCS).
So...basically Maths are saying that a team up 3-0 and then got pushed to a Game 7 lose that Game 7 more often than they win Game 7. Bill Mueller, a member of the 2004 Red Sox that came back to beat the Yankees:
I would say that when you keep winning and there are no letups and no cracks, you have an understanding that their side wasn't as high as when they were up 3-0. We had a relentless pursuit. I hope the Astros do it because it's a wonderful feeling. You want other people to feel such an accomplishment. That's something that will never go away in your legacy. It's pretty special.
FanGraphs' ALCS Playoff Simulations, by day:
October 10: 51.6 - 48.4 Houston
October 11: 64.8 - 35.2 Tampa (not really sure why things changed so much from the Day Before Game 1 to the Day Of Game 1. Maybe they announced Snell as the G1 starter? I don't know)
October 12: 80.6 - 19.4 Tampa
October 13: 93.4 - 6.6 Tampa
October 14: 87 - 13 Tampa
October 15: 74.6 - 25.4 Tampa
October 16: 74.5 - 25.5 Tampa
October 17: 50.5 - 49.5 Houston
The guys over there, they're not messing around. I think we realize that.
*How the 5th Inning changed everything.
*Michael Brantley: 2x4, BB, RBI. He has a hit in ten straight postseason games, and 11 of 12 postseason games in 2020. 85 MLB players have at least a 10-game postseason hit streak. 55 have an 11-game postseason hit streak. 34 have a 12-game postseason hit streak. 22 have a 13-game postseason hit streak. 12 have a 14-game postseason hit streak, seven have a 15-gamer, four have a 16-game streak. The all-time record is a hit in 17 straight postseason games, by 2003-2004 Manny Ramirez, 1998-1999 Derek Jeter, and 1956-1958 Hank Bauer.
HOWEVER only 21 players have a 10-game postseason hitting streak *in the same postseason*: 1971 Roberto Clemente, 1978 Bill Russell, 1978 Roy White, 1979 Former Astros Great Phil Garner, 1981 Former Astros Great Bob Watson, 1981 Gary Carter, 1995 Kenny Lofton, 1996 Mark Lemke, 2000 Mike Piazza, 2002 Garret Anderson, 2002 Darin Erstad, 2003 Former Astros Great Ivan Rodriguez, 2006 Scott Rolen, 2010 Cody Ross, 2010 Elvis Andrus, 2010 Nelson Cruz, 2011 David Freese, 2012 Marco Scutaro, 2015 Alcides Escobar, 2015 Daniel Murphy, and 2020 Michael Brantley.
*Carlos Correa: 3x5, RBI. It's the 48th postseason RBI of his career, tied with Reggie Jackson for the 7th-most in MLB history, and the 7th 3-hit postseason game of his career. Correa:
This is what we live for. This is what we dreamed of since we were kids, game seven...So we got to go out there and take care of business tomorrow.
We're relentless. When we said we didn't want to go home, we really meant that. We want to keep playing baseball and we don't want this to be the end of our season. We took care of these three games and now we've got to take care of one more. If we don't win that game, it all means nothing. We have to go out there tomorrow and get that win. It would be great.
*Jose Altuve: 2x3, 2BB, RBI. It's the 24th multi-hit postseason game of his career. Jose Altuve, on January 18:
We're going to be in the World Series again. People don't believe it. We will.
*Yuli Gurriel: 0x2, 3BB. He's the 13th Astro in franchise history with 3BB in a single postseason game.
*Kyle Tucker hit his first postseason home run for his first postseason extra-base hit. Crazy to think that Tucker is hitting .311 in this postseason and that was his first extra-base hit.
*Framber Valdez: 6IP, 3H/1ER, 9K:3BB. He threw a whole bunch of devastating curves.
Framber's 2020 postseason: 24IP, 14H/5ER, 26K:10BB. 1.88 ERA / 1.00 WHIP. He's the 91st starter in postseason history with four straight starts of two or fewer ERs, and only the third Astros starter to hit that mark (Zack Greinke, Dallas Keuchel). He's the only one to do it four times in the same postseason.
Framber and Gerrit Cole are the only pitchers in franchise history to strike out 9+ batters in an elimination game.
Framber also had hisself a little dust-up with Yandy Diaz. Correa - who is obviously now the Tie Domi of the Houston Astros - de-escalated the situation. Correa:
Your job is not to go out there and be the bigger man, your job is to help us win this ballgame.
I've thought about this for a few hours, and I honestly think that Yandy Diaz was trying to light a fire under his teammates. If it takes a faked slight or a faked disrespect, then so be it. It almost worked. Let's see if the Rays can rise up tonight.
*Tampa has lost four games in a row in 2020 before: July 29-August 2 they lost five games in a row to Atlanta and Baltimore. Houston has won four games in a row in 2020 before: they won eight straight from August 12-20 against the Giants, Mariners, and Rockies. Houston's longest win
*Astros pitcher strikeouts, by game:
Game 1: 13
Game 2: 13
Game 3: 9
Game 4: 11
Game 5: 11
Game 6: 13
I'm not factoring in that Braves/Dodgers Game 5 in this, but there are 301 instances of teams striking out 11+ times in postseason history. Five of those were the Rays. They're 2-3 in those games.
Only one other team in postseason history had five 11+ strikeout games in a single series: 2018 Los Angeles Dodgers (NLCS against Milwaukee). They won that series so wait what am I doing.
*Ryan Pressly has now pitched in three straight games, something he has not done since May 26-28, 2018 when he was still with Minnesota. He has only thrown 39 pitches in those three games, but still, worth keeping an eye on for Game 7.
*2018 Cy Young Winner Blake Snell has never gotten 18 outs in a postseason game.
*Tampa's Diego Castillo had pitched in 10 postseason games prior to Game 6. His line:
13IP, 8H/0ER, 18K:6BB.
Castillo's line in Game 6: 1IP, 3H/2R (1ER), 0K:1BB.
*Dusty called Game 6 the biggest win of his career.
*Maldonado, on McCullers going in Game 7:
We have the right guy. He's been there before, pitching Game 7 of the World Series. I just feel we're going to take this game like we have been taking every game, one pitch at a time. As long as we keep executing pitches, keep playing defense like we are, we're going to be in good shape.
*Pre-Game 6 Notes from McTaggart: The Astros might take Josh James off the roster due to his back, which would remove him from the World Series, and Lance McCullers says that Machete is the ALCS MVP.
*ESPN's Bradford Doolittle (posted at 6am Central on Thursday): Why these Astros could finish the job.
*The Athletic: Meet the guy behind Petco Park's genius player facts.
*Military incompetence unleashed a Wolf Psyop on unsuspecting Canadians.
*A Musical Selection:
