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After watching the Astros coming back from seemingly impossible odds in last season’s World Series on numerous occasions, I kept expecting a miracle comeback tonight at some point. But it seems that after the hard fought loss two night’s ago, in which it seemed that everything about the game was stacked against them. the Astros had little fight left in them tonight.
Or maybe the Red Sox, and tonight’s starting pitcher David Price, were just better.
Price was a master tonight, allowing no runs, no walks, and only 3 hits in six innings. It was his first career victory in playoff competition in over ten years of trying. His nine strikeouts were a playoff career high. His combination of finesse, control, power and changing speed kept the Astros hitters off balance and confused all night.
Justin Verlander was supposed to work his magic and bring the series to Boston. He was not as good tonight, mainly due to two mistakes, a high floating curve in the third that J. D. Martinez smashed beyond the Crawford Boxes, and a three run just barely Crawford Box homer to Rafael Devers that, as it turned out, put the game out of reach.
The only Astros run came on a Marwin Gonzalez home run in the seventh inning off of Price’s replacement, Matt Barnes. In all the Astros were held to only five hits, and they had more than seven in the series only once. That, after a historically dominant hitting performance in the ALDS against a tough Cleveland staff.
The Astros had a great season, let us not forget, winning 103 games, more than they won in their world championship season, And yet, this somewhat humiliating beatdown by Boston leaves many questions for the off season. We will try to deal with and discuss these issues here at the Crawfish Boxes in due course.
There is a lot of good, young talent on this team and in this organization and therefore the Astros should remain a championship contender for next year and years to come. We will report on the young talent in the Astros system throughout the off season.
Go Stros
Poll
Why did the Astros lose the ALCS to the Boston Red Sox?
This poll is closed
-
18%
The Astros just got cold at the wrong time
(194 votes) -
9%
The Red Sox just got hot at the right time
(98 votes) -
9%
The Astros had bad luck. The Red Sox had good luck.
(99 votes) -
2%
The Astros were outmanaged
(30 votes) -
46%
The Red Sox are simply a better team
(495 votes) -
5%
The Astros were hampered by injuries
(63 votes) -
0%
The World Series hangover
(9 votes) -
2%
The hitting declined due to the loss of one or more of: Alonzo Powell, Alex Cora, Carlos Beltran
(22 votes) -
5%
The umpires robbed the Stros
(55 votes)
Box score and videos here.