Astros stun Rangers: Houston has dramatic ALCS win after benches clear

ARLINGTON, Texas — As Jose Altuve’s fly ball disappeared over the wall in left field, needing every single inch of its 382-foot flight plan to save their season, the Houston Astros turned Globe Life Field into their own party deck.

Starting pitcher Justin Verlander came out onto the dirt outside the dugout and leaped into the air, his hang time belying his 40-year-old frame. He was joined, perhaps not hyperbolically, by every player on their roster saluting their longtime and forever hero, Altuve, who authored arguably his greatest playoff chapter in a career that could fill a tome of them.

Bryan Abreu simply fumed.

As his teammates joined in a bobbing mass of joy after Altuve’s three-run home run in the top of the ninth inning erased a two-run deficit and delivered a stunning, emotionally wrought 5-4 victory over the Texas Rangers in Game 5 of this suddenly spicy American League Championship Series, Abreu gazed around the empty visitors’ clubhouse at Globe Life Field and realized he was all alone.

Minutes earlier, he’d been ejected for a fastball that struck Rangers right fielder Adolis Garcia, the umpiring crew determining his pitch was intentional, revenge for Garcia’s go-ahead three-run home run and ostentatious celebration to follow, a claim he and the Astros thought was ludicrous and that Garcia himself didn’t particularly encourage.

And so when Altuve crushed a changeup from Rangers closer Jose Leclerc and sent it just over the grasp of leaping left fielder Evan Carter, Abreu was perhaps the only soul from Sugar Land to Spring not overcome by joy.

“I was really mad,” says Abreu, a hugely valuable piece of the Astros’ winning formula each of the past two years. “I would love to be outside there, celebrating with my teammates. But I was in here, for no reason.

“That really pissed me off.”

Yet Abreu’s isolation only added to the emotional palette of this game, a stunning nine innings that had it all – soaring achievement and crushing failure, redemption and revenge, gratitude and grousing.

“I’m going to tell my kids about this game,” says Astros center fielder Mauricio Dubon.

“It was an incredible baseball game,” says Alex Bregman, the Astros third baseman who has played in 95 of these postseason affairs.

The stakes were massive: The Astros will go back to Houston for Sunday's Game 6 of this ALCS, needing one win to advance to a third consecutive World Series. The Rangers absorbed the ultimate gut punch, from which almost every postseason club fails to recover.

USA TODAY Sports breaks down the most compelling figures from nine innings of drama: 

The arc of the elite athlete can be fascinating: From fresh new thing, to consistent All-Star, to yesterday’s news. Only when the athlete continues achieving the absurd, commanding the spotlight, bending the game to their will, do they appear intriguing again.

This is the rarefied space Altuve occupies.

His home run Friday was the 26 playoff bomb of his career, second in major league history. Yet with playoffs ever expanding and the postseason stretching five weeks when one once sufficed, these high-water marks can seem like statistical debris

No, it is not just the numbers but the time and place and significance that tell a greater story, such as his 2019 walk-off homer off current Ranger Aroldis Chapman in Game 6 of the ALCS that sent the Astros to the World Series. That likely stood as his most significant of his 112 playoff hits.

Until Friday.

Those 2019 Astros were a near lock to eliminate the Yankees. These Astros were three outs away from their World Series defense in jeopardy.

Instead, they can spend the off day pondering how much better life is up 3-2 rather than down the same in a best-of-seven series.

“I got to say this one,” Altuve said Friday when asked to rank his greatest hits, “because it just happened and still have the emotions, the adrenaline in me.”

Recency bias? No, perhaps the magnitude only grows the more times a legend does it.

“It’s literally an honor to take the field with him every single day,” says Bregman. “I hope my 14-month-old son grows up to be the man he is.”

That was a common theme Friday, Astros players singing the praises of Altuve the person and not the player. For the past four years, he has heard a chorus of boos that ring out not because he’s a high-achieving villain on a rival team, but rather a member of the 2017 World Series-winning Astros team that concocted a daft sign-stealing scheme.

Yet it’s been six years since that scandal and four years since its revelation. The Astros are on the verge of their third pennant since then, and a shot at consecutive World Series titles. Fans aren’t obligated to grant Altuve sainthood, but they’d be wise to recognize the killer between the white lines.

Friday’s moment came with a stunning sense of inevitability.

Altuve came in on a heater: Five hits in nine at-bats since the ALCS shifted to the Rangers’ Globe Life Field, where the Astros hit extremely well. Altuve had the table set for him: Pinch-hitters Yainer Diaz and Jonathan Singleton singled and drew a walk, respectively, flipping the order to get back to you-know-who.

Altuve had a vulnerable target: Leclerc was trying to complete a five-out save, a bit out of his comfort zone even before his outing was disrupted by a 10-minute delay due to the fracas and umpires debating punishment.

“You don't use the word ‘expect,’” says Verlander, “but you anticipate something great happening.”

So when Leclerc’s change up stayed up and on the inner half of the plate, Altuve went down and got it. Rangers 4, Astros 2 became Astros 5, Rangers 4.

And Leclerc became the latest to get posterized in October.

“It’s like everything’s in slow motion for him,” says Astros closer Ryan Pressly, the winning pitcher. “ Josey’s just one of those guys where you better make quality pitches.

“Otherwise, he’s going to rock your world.”

Just one player on the Astros’ roster comes close to Altuve’s Astro tenure: Reserve first baseman Jon Singleton debuted in 2014, Altuve’s fourth year.

But Singleton’s stint has not been consecutive, his path diverted multiple times.

He came up in an era when marijuana use was considered punishable for minor leaguers, and as he failed to gain traction with the Astros, he was suspended three times for violating the weed policy.

The Astros released him in 2018, with just 357 major league at-bats under his belt. It’d be five more years before he got another one, catching on with the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Astros picked him up in June, a sparingly used bat. But he made the playoff roster and, despite having just seven at-bats since Sept. 13, had a feeling his number would be called as Game 5 unfolded.

Friday, Altuve would make history with his 466 career playoff plate appearance.

Singleton would have his first.

“You kind of get a feeling the way a baseball game starts out, the way it continues through the middle parts, coming down the line you get a feeling for what the next move is going to be before the manager has to tell anybody,” says Singleton, who watched the Astros take leads of 1-0 and 2-1 until Garcia finished Verlander with a game-turning and seemingly series-turning three-run shot.

“Honestly, it’s a lot of being psychologically ready, day in and day out. Putting in the work, staying sharp so that when my number’s called, I’m ready.”

With the Astros trailing 4-2 in the ninth, the Astros’ coaching staff, with manager Dusty Baker ejected the inning earlier, got aggressive: Diaz pinch-hit for shortstop Jeremy Peña and singled. Singleton was summoned to bat for the light-hitting Martin Maldonado.

Singleton didn’t swing the bat, even as Leclerc battled back from a three-ball count to run it full. And the man who batted .165 this year with a .267 on-base percentage, whose plate discipline was so grim with Milwaukee that the Brewers released him with a .188 OBP, beat the odds again.

He got on base.

OK, it was just a walk. But stars need table-setters and sometimes a championship team needs every man on its roster.

“Singleton’s at-bat was massive, to give Altuve the chance,” says Bregman. “Talk about two guys who hadn’t had many postseason at-bats really come through for us there

“It speaks to their character and their preparation they put in on a daily basis even if they’re not in the lineup every day.”

When Abreu and Baker were tossed in the bottom of the eighth inning, chaos reigned and the Astros were, to put it mildly, screwed. They trailed by two runs, and the Rangers had two men on base, and Houston was forced to summon its closer, not to close the game but more to provide a life raft.

Pressly would not earn his 16 career playoff save this day. It would be far more impressive than that.

With Globe Life Field buzzing like a hornet’s nest, Pressly induced a groundout that put runners on second and third. Then, he punched out Josh Jung and Nathaniel Lowe – who homered earlier – to end the threat.

The score would stay 4-2.

“It’s kind of hard to explain, but the louder the crowd gets, for me, it’s almost like white noise,” says Pressly. “It doesn’t really bother me that much. I just want to go out and make quality pitches – pick up my teammate.”

Indeed, Abreu’s walk and hit-by-pitch that started the insanity would not hurt the Astros. But Pressly’s job was just beginning.

After Altuve’s homer, the Rangers immediately punched back, with singles from Mitch Garver and Jonah Heim putting the tying and winning runs on in the ninth. It flipped the Rangers’ lineup, too, putting them in position to replicate Altuve’s feat.

Pressly didn’t let that happen.

Marcus Semien hit a lineout to reserve shortstop Grae Kessinger. Corey Seager flew out to Dubon in deep center field. And Carter, the celebrated rookie, struck out swinging.

Game over.

“I joke around with him, telling him, I want his job” says Dubon. “But in situations like this, no, heck no, I don’t want that job.”

This game wouldn’t be complete without an ignominious figure or two. Leclerc, sure, but he was taken far out of his comfort zone.

Garcia’s role in all this is minimal: He was simply hit by a pitch. Yet for fans of a redemptive narrative, he certainly played the heel.

Garcia immediately got in catcher Maldonado’s face, assuming the pitch was retaliation – perhaps for Garcia’s emphatic home-run celebration, or extending from a beef between the two teams in July.

Chaos ensued.

The benches cleared. Players streamed from the dugout and clubhouse. And umpires ejected Abreu, Garcia and Baker.

Nobody was pleased with that.

“It didn't make any sense to me,” says Baker, echoing the grumblings in the Astros clubhouse that Abreu might have malicious intent in a crucial playoff game. “And I haven't been that mad in a long time.

“And I don't usually get mad about nothing. So I'm just glad that we won the game.”

Crew chief James Hoye explained to a pool reporter that the six-man umpiring crew deemed Abreu’s pitch intentional. They considered Garcia “the aggressor there,” in his shouting match with Maldonado.

The whole mess took more than 10 minutes, which Rangers manager Bruce Bochy fumed about, since Leclerc’s outing spanned the eighth and ninth innings.

“I think sometimes when we’re on the field,” says Hoye, “it feels like it’s a long time. But I’d rather take that 20 to 30 seconds to make sure we’re getting it right.”

It was hard to find anyone agreeing with that last sentiment.

“Nobody’s trying to hit anybody in that situation,” says Pressly. “If you’re going to do that kind of stuff, you’re going to do it in the regular season. You’re not going to do it in the postseason.”

Says Verlander: “In that spot I don't know how those six guys got together and determined that they were sure it was intentional, because I think from a baseball perspective, it surely was not.”

The Astros also insisted they weren’t mad at Garcia’s home run trot, that gaudy celebrations are the way of the baseball world. Garcia left open the possibility Abreu dotted him on purpose.

“You hit a ball like that, you're going to celebrate,” says Garcia through a club translator. “It's where we're at right now. So I don't think that that's a way for them -- if they're trying to react to that, I don't think that's the correct way.”

Hogwash, says the Astros.

“I’m the kind of guy, I don’t care about celebrations,” says Abreu, who had a brief exchange with Garcia during the scrum. “That was a big, big moment for him. He got the chance to celebrate, do whatever he wants.

“I went in and was saying, hey, my bad, it wasn’t on purpose. He said, ‘Hey, bull(expletive). “I said, OK, I’m done. You’re hot. I just tried to move back.”

Soon, it was the Astros getting hot. Correlating Altuve’s blast with Garcia’s fuse-lighting is, of course, pure folly. But it is the Astros going home with the ALCS lead, and the Astros left to shape the narrative that Garcia’s instigating awoke a championship bear.

“Yes, of course it did,” says Maldonado.

They’ll have two shots to return to the World Series for a third consecutive year, all thanks to perhaps their most remarkable triumph in seven dominant years.

“I love this team,” says Pressly. “It’s just a different animal in this clubhouse.”