HOUSTON — Follow along because at the end there is going to be a Game 7.
Let’s begin with how unmercifully the Minute Maid Park crowd booed Public Enemy No. 1 in Houston, Adolis Garcia, through each of his at-bats Sunday night — the first four of which ended in strikeouts and, thus, euphoria in the stadium.
But in what Rangers catcher Jonah Heim called “baseball justice,” Garcia got the last swing and the last laugh by hitting a grand slam in the ninth inning of Game 6 that assured the Rangers would win 9-2 and keep intact the hospitality that the two Lone Star clubs are showing each other in this AL Championship Series.
For there is no home-field advantage. Six games. Six road victories. Do the math. That means the series is tied at three games apiece.
The only time in any of the four major North American sports leagues (not including the pandemic NBA bubble) that the road team won every time in a seven-game series was the 2019 World Series. The Astros lost Games 1-2 and 6-7 in that series at Minute Maid and the Game 7 starter for the Nationals in their title clincher was Max Scherzer.
And that is where we are, as promised. Game 7. At Minute Maid again. And the Rangers are starting Scherzer, who they acquired from the Mets at the deadline to help them get into the playoffs for the first time since 2017, GM Chris Young said, but also, “Yes, we wanted him for these moments.”
And it does feel like the right moment. For these teams to go the distance. After all, the Astros did not clinch the AL West until Game 162. Houston and Texas finished with identical records, but the Astros captured the tiebreaker by winning the season series 9-4. But there were clues even then of what was to come. The Astros were 6-1 at Globe Life Field against the Rangers and 3-3 at home. In this series, they are 3-0 at Globe Life and 0-3 in Minute Maid, where they are now 40-46 overall for the season.
So the Astros fought all year to make sure they could get a Game 7 here and is that actually a good thing? Especially since it could all be made worse for Houston as it awaits word if it will have its top set-up man, Bryan Abreu, for Game 7.
Abreu hit Garcia with a pitch in Game 5 in the at-bat after Garcia hit a key three-run homer and then took his time rounding the bases. It instigated a benches/bullpen-clearing incident. MLB deemed Abreu’s actions purposeful and dangerous and suspended him two games. Abreu appealed Sunday. By CBA rule, in the playoffs the case has to be heard within 48 hours; thus, it could be ruled upon Monday during the day and leave Abreu potentially unavailable at night.
“That could be a huge blow,” Astros manager Dusty Baker conceded.
The three main actors in the fracas Friday were all back in their spots in the eighth inning Sunday, with Abreu pitching, Martin Maldonado catching and Garcia batting with Texas ahead 4-2. The booing and derision toward Garcia reached a volume similar to how loud this stadium gets when the Astros actually win a series and it was full-throated when Abreu inflicted Garcia’s fourth strikeout of Game 6.
Houston then had a chance to feed upon that momentum, loading the bases with one out in the bottom of the inning. Texas manager Bruce Bochy essentially ignored the wild and unsteady Aroldis Chapman, using first Josh Sborz and then closer Jose Leclerc to drop Houston to 3-for-17 with men on base.
And then came the punctuation in the ninth as Texas loaded the bases dramatically for Garcia with what was then a 5-2 lead. Amid the boos, you could hear the crack of the hardest-hit ball of Game 6 — a 110.1 mph dart off of Ryne Stanek that landed in the Crawford Boxes. Garcia’s fifth homer of this postseason; the grand slam marking a homer in a third straight game for him and a hush to what had been Altuve-in-The-Bronx level vitriol.
“He kind of quieted it pretty quickly there,” Heim said. To Garcia’s vengeance, Young said, “Loved it.” Garcia did not make his feelings known. The Rangers announced he would not be available and then defied MLB protocol by closing their clubhouse rather quickly for a playoff game — by the way, they were the winning team.
But it is a weird series. The home teams can’t win. So we get a Game 7. It is Scherzer at Minute Maid again. And we get to learn Monday night if the Astros continue a road to ruin — in their own ballpark.
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