The World Series is knotted up at a game a-piece after Houston’s dramatic comeback in game 2. The Astros will now play three straight games at home and if they manage to find a way to win all of them they’d close the Series at home.
Game 3 takes place tonight at Minute Maid Park as Japan’s Yu Darvish of the Dodgers goes against the Astros’ Lance McCullers.
McCullers looked solid in his last outing of the ALCS as he tossed 24 straight curveballs to close out the Astros’ Game 7 win against the Yankees in the ALCS.
The Astros are undefeated at home in the postseason and they will try to keep that going as they look to build on the momentum of that dramatic victory at Dodger Stadium.
The Astros managed to make the Dodgers’ bullpen look vulnerable for the first time this postseason. The Dodgers were 98-0 when leading games after eight innings and now that’s a thing of the past.
Kenley Jensen who was untouchable throughout the playoffs proved that he’s human and can be rattled. It will be interesting to see how well he adapts to his first adversity in a long time and if he can adjust to pitching confidently on the road against a Houston lineup that is explosive enough to score runs in bunches at any given moment of the ballgame.
The Dodger bullpen, which had a 28-inning scoreless streak in the postseason, saw that streak also snapped and now must be prepared to spring into action and backup starter Yu Darvish regardless of how many innings he’s able to pitch in game 3.
The Dodgers hitters must be ready to prove their worth against McCullers and try to show their resiliency in the first moment of playoff adversity they have faced this October. Can they help the Dodgers come back and take at least one of the next three games to avoid a sweep in Texas?
Yu Darvish, a pitcher acquired from the Texas Rangers for precisely this type of games and this kind of stage, should help the Dodgers confidence as he has pitched at Minute Maid Park before and pitched well.
This season Darvish has a 3.00 ERA in two games against the Astros. In those games, he pitched 12 innings limiting Houston’s batters to a .182 average and striking out 12 of them.
At Minute Maid Park he was even better as he pitched seven innings where he struck out four players, his ERA shrank to 1.29 and the Astros batted a paltry average of just 0.45.
Career-wise the Astros are batting just .190 against Darvish and he has struck out 53 of 163 players he has faced.
Regardless of those numbers, the Dodgers can’t get too confident because the Astros already proved they are a team that can bounce back when adversity strikes.
Regardless of those numbers, the Dodgers can’t get too confident because the Astros already proved they are a team that can bounce back when adversity strikes. It’s the Dodgers turn to prove they can do the same, take back home-field advantage from the Astros and send this series back to Los Angeles if they need to.
