HOUSTON — The Philadelphia Phillies served sharp notice in the World Series opener Friday that they are here for far more than purely ornamental reasons.
Houston, which entered as heavy favorites and previously had faced nothing it couldn’t handle this postseason, took note. Then the Astros came out in Game 2 looking like a team that had spent a long night contemplating how they let things get away in Game 1, and decided they were not going to let it happen again.
Working quickly, aggressively and decisively, the Astros plated three first-inning runs on Saturday night practically before the last notes of the national anthem had been sung. Phillies starter Zack Wheeler had barely finished tying the laces in his cleats before Jose Altuve, Jeremy Peña and Yordan Alvarez knocked him off balance and the Astros were well on their way toward pocketing a 5-2, series-evening win.
Now, thanks to that and Framber Valdez’s dazzling six and a third innings, the venue shifts back to Philadelphia for Game 3 on Monday evening with a very different tone.
The Astros became the first team in World Series history to start a game with three consecutive extra base hits. In doing so, it appeared as if they simply couldn’t wait to erase the memory of the five-run lead they blew in their 6-5, 10-inning Game 1 loss.
Altuve, the team’s slumping leadoff man, ripped the first pitch of the game, a 96-mile-per-hour sinker, into the left-field corner for a double.
Up stepped Peña, the team’s rookie shortstop, who laced the second pitch of the game, an 82-m.p.h. curveball, into left field for another double.
Then came Alvarez, the team’s mighty designated hitter, whose plate appearance seemed to take forever by comparison. He fouled off Wheeler’s first pitch, a 96-m.p.h. fastball, and then ripped into the second pitch, a 92-m.p.h. slider, drilling it the same way Altuve and Peña did, into left field for a third consecutive double.
So for those scoring at home, two pitches into the bottom of the first inning, the Astros led, 1-0. Four pitches in, they led, 2-0.
Though Wheeler missed a month late in the season with tendinitis in his forearm, he had been pitching this postseason as if he had never been stronger. He reeled off 11⅓ consecutive scoreless innings to begin his playoff run, which, combined with a scoreless streak to finish the regular season, extended to 19⅓ scoreless innings.
His 1.78 E.R.A. this postseason entering Saturday’s start ranked as the third-best ever by a Phillies pitcher with a minimum of 20 innings pitched in a single postseason, trailing Steve Carlton’s 1.33 (1983) and Cliff Lee’s 1.56 (2009). And his 0.51 WHIP (walks plus hits divided by innings pitched; essentially, how many baserunners a pitcher allows per inning) was easily the lowest ever by a pitcher through his first four starts of a single postseason.
Yet the Astros threatened whiplash, they started so quickly.
Their third run of the first inning was produced by sheer aggressiveness. Alvarez tagged and advanced to third base on Kyle Tucker’s fly ball to center field. The ball was shallow enough to make it a risky decision, but Phillies’ center fielder Matt Vierling’s throw was strong and wide and Alvarez was safe. It paid off enormously when the next batter, Yuli Gurriel, hit what should have been an inning-ending ground ball to shortstop. But Edmundo Sosa, Philadelphia’s normally sure-handed infielder, bounced the throw past Rhys Hoskins at first base and Alvarez crossed the plate, making it 3-0.
Within all of that, the headline news of the night for the Astros was their second baseman’s breakout. Altuve, playing in his 88th postseason game, had been uncharacteristically quiet this month. He was just 4 for 37 (.108) with no homers and just one extra-base hit (a double, against the Yankees in the A.L.C.S.)
Clearly, he was frustrated. When he lofted a high fly ball to center field in the ninth inning of Game 1 with two outs and the score tied, 5-5, he slammed his bat into the ground and jogged most of the way to first base. When the ball fell cleanly into a sort-of Bermuda Triangle in the outfield for a single, it was apparent he could have made it to second base had he been running hard. Instead, he stole second and then one batter later, Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos made the play of the game on a Peña fly ball. It was a running and diving catch that set the Phillies up to win.
Altuve rarely shows frustration, but he did then, which Houston Manager Dusty Baker addressed before Game 2.
“I mean, he can’t be happy, but he’s happy we’re winning,” Baker said. “He might be the strongest dude in this building mentally. He’s probably had to be most of his life. So I just know that any minute now he’s one hit away from a hot streak.”
That hit came on the first pitch of Game 2. Then Altuve added two more singles over his next three at-bats. If that is a hint of what’s to come, the Astros will gladly take it, and they will love their chances even more.
Adding to their delight in Game 2 was another of what has become a typically vintage performance from Valdez. The left-hander who fired 25 consecutive quality starts from April 25 through Sept. 18 this year to set an M.L.B. record for a single season mostly was untouchable in Game 2. Though he left a runner on base who came around to score, leaving him charged with one earned run, it came with the Astros safely ahead, 5-0 thanks to two big insurance runs that came from an Alex Bregman home run in the fifth inning.
Philadelphia added one run on a ground ball in the ninth, but that was all they could muster against Houston, with no dramatic rally to match Game 1.
The difference, for the most part, was Valdez, who scattered four hits and struck out nine, helping erase memories of his poor performance in last year’s World Series.
In fact, Valdez was so strong early that of his first six strikeouts, four came on 0 and 2 curveballs. And in the fourth inning, Bryce Harper twice stepped out of the box with two strikes in a clear attempt to disrupt Valdez’s rhythm.
It didn’t work. Valdez didn’t even bother stepping off the rubber. He simply waited patiently as the sellout crowd of 42,926 loudly booed, and then he punched out Harper on a cool, 80-m.p.h. curve.
He had turned the boos to cheers, and overnight, the Astros scowls to smiles.