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6th Inning: Jose Altuve led off the 6th with a 5 pitch walk against Chris Sale. Michael Brantley swung on the next pitch from Sale & hit a dribbler to the left side of the infield, resulting in an infield hit & Altuve advancing to 3B on the play. Bregman then grounded out for the 1st out of the inning to Sale with Brantley moving to 2B. And the man of the night so far Yordan Alvarez hits a linedrive to leftfield for a double, driving in 2 more run.
The score was now 3-0 Houston. Reliever Ryan Brasier would come in for Chris Sale after failing to get through Houston’s top of the order one more time through. Brasier got the 2nd out of the inning, striking out Carlos Correa. The infield woes for Boston continued with Kyle Tucker hitting a groundball to Xander Bogaerts and was unable to get the final out at 1B in time. The next pitch was ripped off the bat of Yuli Gurriel & driving in another run, making the game 4-0. The 8th man to come up to the plate Jose Siri was finally able to get a hit on the night with a single to rightfield, driving in 2 more runs with 2 outs still on the board & the game was now 6-0 Houston.
FINALLY the Red Sox were able to escape the Top of the 6th with a flyout to left off the bat of Martin Maldonado but the damage had already been done with FIVE runs being scored that half.
Framber Valdez struckout Boston’s leadoff man Christian Arroyo in the bottom half on 4 pitches to get the 1st out of the inning. Christian Vazquez got Boston’s 2nd hit of the game with a double to leftfield. Boston’s postseason hero to this point Kiké Hernández popped up on the next pitch from Valdez to put up the 2nd out of the inning. Schwarber then lined out to 1B & ended the inning, leaving Vazquez on base.
7th Inning: Hansel Robles was now the pitcher for Boston in the top half and gave up a a single to Jose Altuve, which was Altuve’s 1st hit of the night surprisingly enough. A pickoff attempt at 1B backfired for Robles as Schwarber was not able to scoop it up and Altuve advanced to 2B. Some soft contact off the bat of Michael Brantley resulted in a single to center & an RBI scoring, making the game 7-0 now with no outs in the inning to this point. Luckily for Robles, Alex Bregman grounded into a double play to help salvage the inning. Afterwards, Darwinzon Hernandez was brought in to face the SCORCHING HOT Yordan Alvarez & successfully struckout Yordan on an inside corner pitch.
After getting Xander Bogaerts to groundout for the 1st out of the bottom half, Valdez gave up a solo shot to Rafael Devers for his 12th RBI this postseason which ended the shutout on the night. And following the Devers HR, J.D. Martinez walked on 6 pitches. Once again Hunter Renfroe was unable to capitalize on free real estate with J.D. at 1B & grounded into another double play.
8th Inning: After falling behind 3-0 to Carlos Correa in the top half, Darwinzon was able to get Correa to ground out and get the 1st out of the inning. A walk to Kyle Tucker would spell out the end of Hernandez’ night & Hirokazu Sawamura was called on from the bullpen. A single to Gurriel, a Siri strikeout, a Maldonado walk & an Altuve line out all capped off a long top half of the 8th inning.
Framber rolled back out to the mound in the bottom half, after waiting 30+ minutes since he last pitched in the bottom of the 7th & worked another 1-2-3 inning vs Boston in the bottom half.
9th Inning: Martin Perez came in relief for Boston in the top half of the inning, working in and out of trouble, all while loading the bases and giving up another 2 runs to Yuli Gurriel.
Ryne Stanek came in the bottom of the 9th & closed out the game easily, sending the Astros back to Houston with a 3-2 Series Lead.
FINAL SCORE:
HOU 9 - BOS 1
Astros Lead Series 3-2