Carlos Correa keeps Astros alive, hits walk-off blast in ninth to force Game 6
“It’s surreal, man,” Correa, the Astros’ shortstop, said after hitting a walk-off homer that delivered a 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays at Petco Park on Thursday. “I lose it every single time, brother. I don’t know what I do. I black out.”
Rays reliever Nick Anderson threw the high fastball that could land in playoff history. With Game 6 here Friday, with the Rays’ lead trimmed to 3-2, they are no longer sprinting past the Astros on their way to an AL pennant. The Astros have Framber Valdez lined up to start and Lance McCullers Jr. waiting behind him.
This is very much a series again. That’s the power of one swing.
“We’re one step closer to getting over that mountain, that hurdle that seemed way off in the distance a couple days ago,” said Astros Manager Dusty Baker, who had a long embrace with Correa after the win. They had teamed for the Astros’ second straight win since facing a possible sweep.
“I [expletive] told you,” Correa recounted of their short conversation. “Those were the exact words I used.”
In a second elimination game for the Astros and a second shot to advance for the Rays, it was as if both managers chose their starters — or, rather, their openers — out of a hat. Luis García, a 23-year-old rookie, went for Houston. Reliever John Curtiss went for Tampa Bay. Garcia had thrown 12⅓ innings above the Class A Fayetteville Woodpeckers. On Wednesday, Curtiss detailed how, when the Rays signed him to a minor league deal in February, no other teams were calling.
How they squared off now, in the middle of October, was a matter of circumstance. Both sides had few other choices. With a possible seven games in seven days, they already had exhausted four starters. So Garcia recorded six outs and kept the bases loaded in the second. Curtiss lasted four outs after his first pitch turned into a leadoff homer by George Springer, the 19th blast of his postseason career. Then the Rays countered with Brandon Lowe’s third-inning solo shot off Blake Taylor.
It came right as large shadows crept across the field and the whole mound was shaded by the outline of a light tower. That makes it hard for batters to read the seams and spin out of a pitcher’s hand. The ball looks more like a gray blob than a white sphere with red stitching. But the Astros were still able to bully lefty Josh Fleming, the first out of Tampa Bay’s bullpen.
Their rally brewed when Josh Reddick singled and Martín Maldonado cracked a double off the wall in the third. They pushed ahead when Michael Brantley dumped a two-run single in front of right fielder Austin Meadows. Now, after a slight hiccup, Baker had everything set up: The shadows lingered. Enoli Paredes, one of his better relievers, was in and ready for multiple innings. Andre Scrubb, Houston’s most effective reliever this season, was fresh behind Paredes. Baker just needed a lot to click.
“It was going to be one of those things where you just had to piece it inning by inning, pitch by pitch, reliever by reliever,” said Ryan Pressly, who completed the ninth for Baker and showered him with praise: “He did a hell of a job.”
In the fifth, Randy Arozarena tied the rookie record with his sixth homer of the postseason, a lined shot out to right-center. But the Rays could manage only three solo homers off the Astros’ bullpen. Ji-Man Choi popped the last one off Josh James in the eighth to knot the score. Otherwise, in a slew of micro moves, Baker used seven pitchers, five of them rookies, to hold that lineup down.
Paredes notched five outs, Scrubb notched four, and Brooks Raley, a 32-year-old lefty with rookie status, recorded three while striking out Arozarena with a curve in the dirt. Next James logged an inning before exiting with back stiffness, shepherding the game into the ninth and making the climbing stakes clear: The Rays needed one more run to take the AL pennant, and the Astros needed one to play on.
Had the game made it to extras, Baker would have brought Valdez out of the bullpen. Because it didn’t, Baker was able to save Valdez to lead the Astros into Game 6. Baker said that, while watching from the dugout, he prayed to his late father and brother that the Astros wouldn’t need Valdez until Friday. Correa’s 17th postseason homer — his sixth of these playoffs — did the trick.
“I don’t mean no disrespect when I call my shot,” Correa said of telling Baker he would hit the walk-off. “It’s just that after my second at-bat, [hitting coach Alex Cintrón] called me, and he told me a couple things in the cage that made my swing feel great.”
Cintrón noticed that Correa’s stance was too closed in the early innings. He rushed him into the cage for a rapid session, just 10 swings, and Correa, his shoulder a bit more open now, hit a liner in his third at-bat. It felt good, and when they came back from fielding, he asked Cintrón for a few more throws to feel it again. They rushed back to the cage. They fine-tuned. That’s why Correa felt ready to finish the Rays.
So when he crushed that fastball, when he knew it was out, he ambled out of the box, gazed at his work and flung his bat at the chilled evening air. Then his teammates rushed the field and made a ring of bodies around home plate, and as they waited, Correa slowed and shot his helmet into the bunch like a high-arcing jumper. He screamed and rushed into the thick of a few dozen jabs. Survival was their reason to celebrate.
