By the end of American League Championship Series Game 4 on Thursday night, the lawyers left in the crowd at Globe Life Field must have been thumbing through the Texas Constitution to see if what they’ve been watching all year is actually legal. When they came upon Article 1, Section 17, they realized what has been happening: eminent domain, the taking of public property.
With 76 runs in eight games, including 8–5 and 10–3 thumpings of the Rangers in the ALCS, the Astros own Globe Life Field, if not the ALCS itself. The batters’ eye, the fast playing surface and the lack of depth in the Texas pitching staff all contribute to Houston becoming the Arlington Astros here. It may be a quirky narrative, but it’s a real one with real momentum.
Now the ALCS will pivot on whether Rangers Game 5 starter Jordan Montgomery can put a stop to such forceful ownership. The Astros are a very different team than the one Montgomery carved up in Game 1 five days ago (6 1/3 shutout innings). Their lineup is ferocious. Jose Altuve and Mauricio Dubón have become hitting wizards who turn even good pitches into hits. José Abreu has 39 RBIs in his past 34 games. And Yordan Alvarez is so locked in that Houston catcher Martín Maldonado said without a trace of mischief, “Is he the best hitter you ever saw?”
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Alvarez is having an all-time great postseason. His 1.522 OPS is fourth best for any player in a postseason with at least 30 plate appearances, trailing only Manny Ramirez in 2008 (1.747), Barry Bonds in 2002 (1.559) and Carlos Beltran in 2004 (1.557).
“The best I’ve ever seen him,” said Astros hitting coach Álex Cintrón. “Just being healthy, stance-wise, his mechanics, his approach ... it’s unbelievable. So, he’s the best player I’ve ever seen in the playoffs. I’m just happy because I know I just have to go to our routine. Don’t do too much. I know he’s in a good position.”
In two ALCS games in Arlington, the Astros have been relentless, putting 36 runners on base, or an average of two per inning. Alvarez batted all five times in Game 2 with traffic. He ripped two more hits, drove in three more runs and pushed his postseason OPS to 1.522.
The Rangers are at wits’ end when it comes to how to pitch him. Montgomery did tie him up in Game 1 by getting Alvarez to chase curveballs. But even Montgomery admitted, “I am probably going to have to do something different. I think the Astros are such a good team and such a good lineup that it’s hard to get them out the same way. So, we’ll kind of just see how the game goes.”
The Astros saw a different Montgomery than they had in past years and did not come close to solving him. Formally a chase specialist on breaking balls under the zone, Montgomery worked a Zack Wheeler-like combination of four-seam fastballs up and sinkers in to lefties and away to righties, which then opened lanes for his bounced curveball and fading changeup. He expertly moved the ball to all four quadrants with the ball darting down (change), left (sinker), right (curve) and straight (four-seamer).
Look at his pitch charts from June against the Astros compared to ALCS Game 1. In June, the Astros could set their sights on down and arm side (away to righthanders). In Game 1, Montgomery threw an almost even distribution of pitches up, down, arm side and glove side—the four quadrants. Righthanders had to contend with pitches in. More four-seam fastballs (red dots) changed hitters’ eye levels:
Montgomery vs. Astros:
“I liked our approach,” Cintrón said. “I think we have some good swings against him. We had no luck over there [in Houston].
“We battled. I felt like he made some good pitches when he had to make those pitches. He struck out a couple of guys in a big situation. But besides that, we had some traffic on him. And we were attacking him. I just feel in this ballpark, it is going be different.”
No road team should be as comfortable as are the Astros at Globe Life Field, but by now it is an energy they believe in. Most of why it is so is because of the randomness of baseball. But there are some real reasons why the Astros own the joint. Start with that massive batters’ eye in centerfield. It is as big and dark as any ballpark in the majors. It seems especially large when compared to Minute Maid Park in Houston. It must be 40 yards longer and 20 yards higher.
The Minute Maid Park batters’ eye is so narrow that three weeks ago, acting upon complaints of the players, the team removed a red-and-white adjacent beer advertisement and turned the space all green. The background troubles Mike Trout, a .203 hitter at Minute Maid Park, making it his worst AL ballpark. When the Astros get away from Minute Maid, the background at Globe Life Field seems especially big and welcoming. Likewise, as a team that puts the ball in play, the Astros benefit from the worn artificial surface of Globe Life Field, which is one of the fastest in baseball.
“I feel it’s like a good ballpark for us,” Cintrón says. “It’s fast in the ground. The batter’s eye is really, really big. Compared with home, we have a short, smaller batter’s eye. That can be kind of tough sometimes. You know, when the game happens, it’s a big difference. Everybody has been hearing that, but nobody wants to put an excuse on that. But I feel like when they come here, they’re excited to play baseball.”
Such a happy-to-be-here attitude was apparent with Altuve the minute he arrived for Game 3.
“He came out with a different mentality yesterday,” Cintrón said.
Altuve took two rounds of batting practice and also hit off the high-velocity pitching machine in the batting cage. “He wanted to work on something,” Cintrón said. “He usually doesn’t do that.”
Andrew Dieb/USA TODAY Sports
Altuve ripped five hits in two games. He is hitting .366 in Arlington this year.
“We’ve seen a lot of their pitchers,” Astros outfielder Chas McCormick said. “That helps.”
For instance, after Abreu grounded out to end the second on a cookie of a sinker from Dane Dunning, Cintrón knew something wasn’t right in his swing, so he grabbed two tablets. On one he pulled up fresh video of the roll-over grounder. On another he pulled up a two-run single by Abreu off Dunning at Globe Life Field on Sept. 5.
“Same pitcher, same ballpark, same camera angles,” Cintrón says. “I showed them to him. He was drifting forward with his hips. I showed him the one from September and you can see how he was loading on his back hip. No drift.”
After showing him the tablets and putting them down on the bench, Cintrón slapped his right hip for emphasis several times.
The next time Abreu came to bat, he destroyed a 91-mph fastball from Cody Bradford 438 feet for a three-run, game-busting homer that put the Arlington Astros up 7–3. No, you are not working through Alvarez and Abreu right now with 91-mph fastballs in the zone. Texas needs five pitchers to touch the ball the next two games: Montgomery, Game 6 starter Nathan Eovaldi and relievers Josh Sborz, Aroldis Chapman and Jose LeClerc. That’s their path to the World Series.
For the Astros, the path starts with adjusting to Montgomery’s four-quadrant game of keep-away. And it starts with Justin Verlander, who opposes Montgomery again. Verlander threw well in Game 1 except for a hanging slider that Leodys Taveras pulverized. There also was the weirdness of Verlander throwing 47 four-seam fastballs without getting a swing and miss. Texas swatted 19 foul balls off his heater.
“I trust Justin Verlander to pitch well,” Maldonado said. “He loves this ballpark.”
Verlander has pitched twice at Globe Life Park. He has a 1.29 ERA (2 earned runs in 14 innings) with 14 strikeouts and one walk.
“He loves, loves this ballpark,” Maldonado said.
It is a familiar story. As if by eminent domain, the Astros own the place. They are 15-3 here over the past two years. It is on Montgomery to slow down the most comfortable road team in baseball.
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