Houston Astros: 3 Takeaways From Game 1 of the ALDS

Yordan Alvarez is already the series MVP.

Everyone knew how good Yordan Alvarez was. Everyone except Robbie Ray apparently who decided to challenge Alvarez with a fastball over the heart of the plate twice.

Alvarez made him pay on the second pitch with a no-doubt home run to deep right field that ended a remarkable rally by the Houston Astros. It was one of those swings that as soon as you heard the crack of the bat you knew it was gone.

But that wasn’t all Alvarez did. He drove in the Astros first two runs of the game with a double off the left field wall to cut the Mariners lead to 4-2. He also threw Ty France out by a mile from left field to end Justin Verlander’s misery in the fourth inning. An inning that if France scores Verlander may get pulled mid-inning and the Mariners could have piled on.

Sending France in that moment was a bit of hubris on the Mariners part as they already had a four run lead and with that at-bat had most likely knocked Verlander out of the game.

With arguably the hottest hitter on their team coming up in Cal Raleigh, the laissez-faire sending of Ty France against Alvarez’s arm seemed like regardless of if France scores or not the game is in the bag so no big deal if he’s out at home.

That moment is a little underrated as a turning point for obvious reasons, but that inning had the potential to be a whole lot bigger with runners on the corners and Cal Raleigh, who’s already had some big home runs this year, up next.

There was nothing Alvarez didn’t do this game and he almost single-handedly dragged the Astros to a victory contributing five of the eight RBI on the day. Alex Bregman and Yuli Gurriel each had home runs that inched the Astros closer, but Alvarez did the heavy lifting of scoring the Astros first and final runs.

It’s clear that the Astros will have to ride Alvarez’s intimidating presence in the middle of the lineup to victories this series as the Mariners pitching is quite stout.

If you want to see how valuable Yordan Alvarez was in game one, here’s an interesting statistic from Mike Petriello that Alvarez had the most valuable postseason game ever, adding 105 percent win possibility to the Astros.

Truly an all-around incredible game from the big man.

The Astros bullpen made the Yordan Alvarez walk-off possible by holding the Mariners offense at bay for the final five innings.

While all the talk will be about Alvarez’s walk-off and Verlander’s poor start, credit needs to be given to the Astros bullpen for yielding only one run over five innings to give the offense a chance to rally back.

Other than a solo shot by Eugenio Suarez off of Cristian Jaiver, the Houston Astros bullpen was lock down after the Mariners jumped off to such a hot start. Look at the bullpen’s line compared to Verlander’s.

Justin Verlander: Four IP, 10 hits, six runs, one walk, three strikeouts.

Bullpen: Five IP, three hits, one run, no walks, five strikeouts.

The combination of Bryan Abreu, Cristian Javier, Hunter Brown and Rafael Montero did a great job holding the Mariners down giving the Astros offense a chance to get up off the mat and make every effort to win the game.

With a day off those relievers all should be good to go for game two but it also is somewhat of a moot point as their unused relievers consist of Hector Neris who has the lowest WHIP of any Astro reliever on the team at 1.01, Ryne Stanek who has the lowest ERA of any Astro reliever in the history of the franchise at 1.15, and of course their stellar closer in Ryan Pressly.

Suffice to say if Dusty needs to have a quick hook tomorrow for Framber Valdez he should use it as the bullpen seems to be picking up where it left off during the regular season. With so many weapons in a short series you might as well use them at the first sign of trouble.

If Valdez seems to be off in any way tomorrow don’t be surprised to see an even quicker hook as the Astros bullpen seems primed and ready to lock down their opponent.

The Astros defense had three big plays that helped stem the tide of the Mariners offensive surge.

The Mariners had several chances to put the game out of Yordan Alvarez’s powerful reach. But alongside the Astros great relief pitching their defense would not allow it.

It started in the fourth inning when Alvarez threw Ty France out at home on what can only be described as a disrespectful send considering where Alvarez was when he got the ball and where France was on the base paths follow Eugenio Suarez’s single.

It was an inning that could have steamrolled the Astros with Mariners cleanup hitter Cal Raleigh coming to the plate and runners on the corners. Instead it stopped at 6-2 and ended Verlander’s day with an out rather than being pulled mid inning bringing a reliever into a high stress situation.

The Astros got another big play in the top of the seventh as Jarred Kelenic tried to steal second base and get into scoring position for JP Crawford with two outs.

Crisitan Vazquez threw a hot shot to second that took a hard hop but Jeremy Pena was somehow able to not only handle the throw but tag Kelenic out while also placing his foot perfectly in front of the bag blocking Kelenic’s ability to get in safely.

Whether or not that steal would have resulted in runs we’ll never know, but nevertheless it was an impressive play that ended the Mariners eighth inning maintaining a four run lead and nothing more all due to the stellar play by Pena.

Last but not least came Kyle Tucker’s ninth inning snag heading towards the wall on a hard hit ball by Julio Rodriguez.

Off Rodriguez’s bat it looked like the ball at least had a shot to go for extra bases if not out of the park altogether. But Tucker tracked it down and made a great leaping catch right at the wall saving the Astros a run they would find out later to be the difference maker.

The Astros played solid defense, had a terrific outing from their bullpen, and Yordan Alvarez did Yordan Alvarez things. It bodes well that Yuli Gurriel also seemed to be getting hot as he went three for four and the only out he made was a 104 mph line drive to left fielder Jarred Kelenic.

The Astros should have lost this game but doing the little things right defensively alongside a great relief outing from their bullpen kept this game within striking distance to let Yordan Alvarez become the story.

There are things to worry about such as Trey Mancini’s cold swinging streak continuing or the fact that Seattle now has Luis Castillo in game two on the mound giving them a strong chance for a rebound win.

But for now Astros fans should breathe a huge sigh of relief and scream a jubilant cheer of exultation as they narrowly escaped a devastating game one loss that would have been hard to recover from.

Game 2 is Thursday at 2:37 pm CT.