Houston Astros: 3 Takeaways From Game 1 of the ALDS

There are three big takeaways from the dramatic game one win the Astros had over the Seattle Mariners.

The Houston Astros won a wild Game 1  in the American League Division Series coming back from down 7-3 in the eighth inning with a walk-off win over the Seattle Mariners.

The Mariners got into the American League Division Series by erasing a giant deficit of their own in game two of the Wild Card Series against the Toronto Blue Jays and it seemed they were riding high off of that win still.

Seattle rocked presumptive Cy Young winner and future hall of famer Justin Verlander for six runs in four innings off ten hits. It was the worst playoff start in Justin Verlander’s career. The Mariners had a game plan against him and it was working, burying the Astros in an early 4-0 hole.

The Astros kept fighting but every time they scored the Mariners matched it keeping the margin at four runs consistently throughout the game.  With Luis Castillo looming as the game two starter this was as close to a must win without being a must win as playoff games get.

Castillo threw 7.1 innings of shut out baseball against a very good Blue Jays offense and as great as Framber Valdez has been this year his postseason last year outside of one start in Fenway Park was quite miserable.

Suffice to say if the Astros lost this game they faced a distinct possibility of going back to Seattle trailing 2-0 in a best of five series and facing a rabid fan base that hasn’t had playoff baseball in 20 years.

All that has been turned on its head as the Astros now hold a 1-0 series lead which is pretty critical to winning a best of five series. In postseason history the team that wins the first game wins the series 71 percent of the time.

Not that percentages matter as the Astros had a nine percent chance of winning the game going into Yordan Alvarez’s final at bat yesterday.  Speaking of whom…

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.