ARLINGTON, Texas — Rudy Tomjanovich famously exalted a doubted Houston titlist, saying when the Rockets repeated in 1995, “Don’t ever underestimate the heart of a champion.”
The sentiment feels proper for another Houston team trying to repeat. The Astros have spent a good deal of this season down, but not out. They tracked the Rangers in the AL West for most of the schedule and caught them in the end. Texas led the division for 160 days this year, Houston for just 24.
The teams finished with identical 90-72 records, but the Astros claimed the division title because they went 9-4 against the Rangers during the regular season, including 6-1 at Globe Life Field.
That gave the Astros home-field advantage for this ALCS, which might not have been advantageous. Houston is 40-45 at Minute Maid, including the two losses to open the ALCS. At that moment, the Rangers were 7-0 in these playoffs and going home.
That is when Houston manager Dusty Baker channeled his inner Tomjanovich. It was not as bite-sized memorable as what the Rockets coach once offered. But on the off-day before Game 3, questioned about being down 0-2, Baker said, “I am not thinking about being down 3-0. That’s the last thing on my mind. My mindset is to be down 2-1, and then be even 2-2, and then hopefully get to 3-2 and hopefully get to the World Series; that’s how my mind thinks.”
That also is how his team has played, following the confidence of their manager. America’s favorite villains outside Houston (the sign-stealing scandal has yet to completely fade) just will not go away. As hitting coach Alex Cintron said, “It is seven straight years [in at least the ALCS]. They have confidence. They have been in these positions before.”
In the 2019 World Series, the Astros lost the first two games at home before winning the next three in Washington. They went down three games to none in the 2020 ALCS before winning three straight. They lost both series, but in the muscle memory of so many Astros is a belief system that they can recover, honed further by last year’s championship.
“We always believe in what we can do,” catcher Martin Maldonado said.
That faith resonates on the road (55-30 including the postseason) and was buoyed by the Rangers’ problematic pitching depth. The result is the ALCS is now tied at two games apiece after a 10-3 bludgeoning that continued their route from reeling to real threats to be the first repeat champs since the Yankees’ 1998-2000 threepeat. The ALCS is now a best-of-three with the Game 1 starters — Houston’s Justin Verlander and Texas’ Jordan Montgomery — due for Game 5. That one of Bruce Bochy’s trusted pitchers will be back on the mound is a Ranger positive; that it is this mound is not. The Astros are now 8-1 at Globe Life in 2023, outscoring Texas 81-40.
Beginning with a vital three-game sweep here from Sept. 4-6, the Astros are 5-0 and have scored 57 runs at Globe Life, hitting 19 homers and generating a .336 batting average.
“We have played so well here that it felt like the series was 0-0 coming here — that was the vibe in the clubhouse; it felt like we weren’t down at all,” said left fielder Chas McCormick, who homered in Game 4.
The two Globe Life games have emphasized the duality of the Texas staff. The Rangers main five of starters Montgomery and Nathan Eovaldi plus relievers Aroldis Chapman, Jose Leclerc and Josh Sborz have a 1.87 ERA over 53 postseason innings. But none appeared in Games 3 or 4. The other Texas pitchers now have a 7.07 ERA over 28 playoff innings.
Montgomery and Eovaldi have spent this October emphasizing what the Yankees once had and failed to maximize. Andrew Heaney did not do the same. He started Game 4 and a Yankees fan could have felt like they had seen this movie before. In 10 pitches and four batters in the top of the first Thursday, the lefty put Texas behind 3-0. He lasted two outs.
In all, Texas needed three pitchers (also Dane Dunning and Cody Bradford) and 105 pitches to complete four innings. They trailed 7-3. Houston starter Jose Urquidy also was shaky, recording just seven outs. But the length of the Astros staff is superior. Ryne Stanek, with a key one-pitch, inning-ending double play in the third in relief of Urquidy with the score 3-3, and Hunter Brown, with three shutout innings, stabilized the game in a way that the Rangers bullpen never could.
And if the topic is the heart of this champion, no player personifies the Astros pulse more than Jose Altuve. He was 0-for-8 in the two home losses. But in the 8-5 Game 3 win Wednesday, Altuve had two hits (including a homer) and scored two runs. In his 100th career postseason game, he reached base safely four times in Game 4 and scored three runs.
“As Altuve goes, we go,” Cintron said.
Altuve is the pulse — and the heart of this champion is beating strongly yet again.
