World Series 2017: The 5th inning of Game 6 will haunt the Astros for a long time

Game 6 of the 2017 World Series took place a tranquil, misty day in north hills of Los Angeles. What more could a baseball fan ask for? (A game at Minute Maid Park, Astros fans all at once screamed out.) It was Halloween and even Dodgers fans in the front row of Dodger stadium were dress up for the occasion.

The Astros needed only one more win to secure the franchise's first World Series title. But it didn’t happen. The Dodgers won Game 6 by the score of 3-to-1.

The fault for the loss can’t fall on the shoulders of the Astros pitcher Justin Verlander and Joe Musgrove. It simply can’t.

It’s easy to say the pressure is on the lineups and hitting his harder, putting the onus for good pitching to shut down the scoring. But Verlander couldn’t pitch a complete game shutout to secure the win.

Instead, he gave up only three hits, struck out nine and walked none over six innings. What more can you ask for? On top of that, he got weak contact on the double that ended up scoring two runs for the Dodgers.

This isn’t to take credit away from the Dodgers. If anything, its to give them more credit. The Dodgers have battled and had great at-bats against the Astros all series.

Back to Musgrove, he entered his fourth game of the World Series and he allowed his third earned run in four innings. All the runs have been generated by Joc Pederson, who hit two home runs in the first row of Minute Maid Park in right field and Dodger Stadium in left field.

But what will eat Astros fans if Houston can’t get the job done in Game 7 is the top of the fifth inning.

Brian McCann led off the inning with his first road hit of the playoffs (woof). Marwin Gonzalez followed with a rocket past Justin Turner at third base for a double down the left field line. Of course, McCann as the slowest human being playing baseball right now couldn’t score on the hit.

But somehow the Astros had two runners in scoring position and no outs and didn’t get a run across.

This happened because Josh Reddick went from up 3-0 in the count against Rich Hill. He proceeded to take a fastball on the outside part of the plate, swing through another, and strike out on a curveball in the same location.

Justin Verlander struck out to make it two outs. But could A.J. Hinch really pull Verlander at that point? Maybe.

George Springer was intentionally walked and Hill would be replaced by Brandon Morrow.

Morrow appeared his sixth time in World Series and his gameplan for Alex Bregman was to throw back-to-back 98 MPH fastballs. Bregman topped the second one to Corey Seager.

It will be an inning that is thought about by Astros for a long time if things don’t go well for Houston on Wednesday: What could Astros manager A.J. Hinch done differently in game 6, if anything?