HOUSTON — Baseball and weather have a complication in common. They are both frustrating to forecast, changing with the whims of wind or wins. You can begin a day, as so many did here, to a smartphone alert of a tornado warning. And you can end a day, as so many did here, in the rare open air of Minute Maid Park in idyllic 73-degree conditions.
Such is weather, and such is baseball. Twenty-four hours earlier, the Astros were a listless unit, unable to produce even against a pitcher with a broken leg in their fifth straight World Series loss at home. But on Wednesday night, the Minute Maid roof opened up and so did the Astros’ offense. Houston’s pesky and productive approach early against Braves starter Max Fried paved the way to a necessary 7-2 victory that sends this best-of-seven Series to Atlanta knotted in a 1-1 tie.
“Well, they knew that we needed that game, and the roof being open, I mean, rarely is it open,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said of the fans and the roof being open. “Usually it’s not that cool. Usually it’s humid and muggy, and you welcome the roof closed. So it was different.
“They told us it was going to be a much stronger wind than there was, and I’m glad there wasn’t, because we really don’t know how to play with the wind and the roof open at the end of the day.”
Game 2 was everything Game 1 was not.
José Urquidy, who had previously pitched only 1 2/3 innings this postseason, gave the Astros the self-assured, satisfying start that Framber Valdez did not. The Braves, who had owned the opener, suffered in this one from porous pitching, a lack of clutch hitting and uncharacteristically iffy defense.
“He was locating his pitches, keeping us off balance,” said Braves catcher Travis d’Arnaud. “We knew he was going to be a strike thrower, and he went out there and pitched a great game.”
After Urquidy allowed six runs (five earned) over 1 2/3 frames in the Astros’ 12-3 loss in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series at Fenway Park, how was he able to have success vs. Atlanta?
“He started out fast, I mean real fast, and we knew we had to keep a close eye on him because he’s really still just getting into shape because he was out a long time in between starts,” said Baker. “So we knew that we had to watch him around 75 to 80 pitches.”
Whereas every member of Atlanta’s lineup had delivered a hit in Game 1, this time seven of nine Astros had a notch in the hit column, and even the lone holdouts — Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez — either scored or drove in a run. Jose Altuve sparked it all by snapping out of a slump with two extra-base hits, the second of which was his 22nd career postseason home run — tying him with Bernie Williams for second all-time behind Manny Ramirez (29).
After the Astros dropped the opener, Baker had shrugged it off and promised, “Ball’s going to bounce our way tomorrow.”
The ball bounced down the left-field line as Altuve swatted a leadoff double that set up the Astros’ first run in the first. And though the score was tied at 1 the next inning on a solo shot from d’Arnaud, the ball did a lot of bouncing for Houston in the bottom of the second.
Kyle Tucker, Yuli Gurriel and Jose Siri reached in succession on ground-ball singles, the last of which scored a run. When Martín Maldonado ripped — what else? — a ground-ball single through the hole on the left side of the infield, Gurriel scored from second and Siri from first, thanks to a throwing error by Atlanta left fielder Eddie Rosario that went to an uncovered third base. After one more ground-ball RBI single from Michael Brantley with two out, the Astros had jumped out to a 5-1 lead on Fried.
Fried, who was trying to bounce back from an uncharacteristically rough outing in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series after a sensational second half, did settle in from there. That he was able to pitch into the sixth despite that early eruption was helpful to an Atlanta team that will be leaning heavily on the ‘pen in the wake of Charlie Morton’s fractured right fibula.
“Obviously, I’m not happy about it,” Fried said of the second-inning outburst. “Playoffs is a big momentum game. You got to do everything you can to keep the crooked number off the scoreboard. At the end of the day, they put up four runs in that inning. You need to do better next time, just making pitches, getting out of it.”
Braves manager Brian Snitker was impressed with Fried’s outing.
“I’m having a hard time convincing myself that he struggled,” said Snitker. “The first inning, they did some really good hitting. The second inning, when they scored, it was kind of a weird inning, you know what I mean? It wasn’t like he was getting banged around. Balls that found holes, checked swings, we threw a ball away. It was just a weird inning.
“But I thought his stuff was really good. He ended up throwing a lot of pitches for the five innings he was out there, but God, it could have been very easily a different outcome for him, I think, especially that second inning.”
But the damage had been done. And though the Braves got another run on the board with Freddie Freeman’s RBI single in the fifth, Houston did more damage when Alvarez scored on a sixth-inning fielder’s choice and when Altuve, who went 0-for-5 in Game 1, smacked a solo shot off Drew Smyly that went deep into the Crawford Boxes in the seventh.
“Well, he’s good,” Baker said of Altuve. “When you’re good, you’ve just got to — I don’t know. That’s what professionals do. When you know you can play, you have to. I mean, you have no choice.
“My dad used to tell me it’s OK to get down, just don’t stay down. So he didn’t stay down.”
So while the roof was open, Minute Maid Park was quite a bit louder Wednesday than it had been on Tuesday. And now the World Series heads to the open air of Truist Park, where what is now a best-of-five series begins on Friday night.
“I know they’re going to bring it,” Fried said of Braves fan who will be in attendance for Game 3. “We’ve got some really great fans, and I know that they’ll be ready to be cheering us on. We’re ready to get back home.
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