Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman on Sunday delivered big hits in the Houston Astros 6-5 victory over the New York Yankees to win the American League Championship Series and head to the World Series, where they are to face the Philadelphia Phillies, who beat the San Diego Padres 4-3.
In the past few years, it has almost become an October ritual: Astros top Yankees. Astros take pennant.
Taking advantage of a costly error by second baseman Gleyber Torres to produce the go-ahead rally in the seventh inning, the Astros won their second consecutive pennant and fourth in six years, while finishing a four-game sweep of the Yankees.
Photo: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY
Rookie shortstop Jeremy Pena hit a three-run homer off ailing Yankees starter Nestor Cortes to help the American League West champions overcome an early 3-0 deficit. Pena was picked as the series’ Most Valuable Player.
“It’s surreal. You dream about this stuff when you’re a kid,” he said. “We’re a step away from the ultimate goal.”
Perfect in the playoffs, Houston open the World Series at home on Friday night against Bryce Harper and the wild-card Phillies.
Photo: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY
It was the first time both pennants were decided on the same day since 1992.
After losing to the Atlanta Braves in last year’s World Series, Houston is 7-0 this post-season, earning the fifth pennant in franchise history and another chance at its second championship.
The team’s 2017 title was tainted by a cheating scandal.
Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY
“A lot has been said, but there’s not a lot to say anymore, man. We keep coming here. We keep facing the best of the best and we keep winning,” pitcher Lance McCullers Jr said.
“When everything happened a few years ago, we knew the one thing that we could do is we could win, and we could win and win a lot. I understand people are still not going to like us. They’re going to boo us, but at some point you have to respect what we’re doing.”
New York remained without a World Series appearance for 13 years as Aaron Judge’s sensational season ended with a whimper. After setting an American League record with 62 home runs, the star slugger can become a free agent next month.
Photo: Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY
“I could sit here and make excuses about if a ball falls this way, a ball drops that way or a pitch is made here and there. But what it comes down to is they just played better than us,” Judge said.
In Philadelphia, Harper slugged his fifth homer of the post-season, a two-run blast in the eighth inning that turned Citizens Bank Park into a madhouse, and the US$330 million slugger powered the Phillies past the Padres and into the World Series for the first the time since 2009.
Harper made the scene possible because he rose to the moment Philly demanded of him from the time he signed the richest free-agent deal in baseball history. He has made the monumental feat of hitting a baseball look so easy in the post-season and with the pennant at stake, he delivered with the defining moment of his four-year Philadelphia career.
“I hit the ball, and I just looked at my dugout and kind of it’s for all of them,” Harper said. “It’s for this whole team. It’s for this whole organization.”
Rhys Hoskins also hit a two-run homer in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series to spark Philadelphia’s improbable run to the pennant and a shot at its first World Series championship since 2008.
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