ATLANTA — Once again, the Astros expected to come through in what they considered to be a must-win game.
Once again, Jose Altuve would be at the center of the Astros’ success.
Or at least that is how it was supposed to play out. How it so often has in their historic playoff success in recent years.
Altuve had scored both of the Astros’ runs Saturday night, as his teammates blew opportunity after opportunity to stretch out an early lead against the Braves.
When Atlanta jumped suddenly into the lead with back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, the Astros were in trouble.
With two out in the eighth, Altuve came to the plate knowing that one swing could turn the game around.
That is his specialty. The long ball when it matters.
He had already homered earlier in the game to give the Astros a two-run lead, and Altuve has more playoff home runs than all but one player in baseball history.
That lead was now gone. The season was now on the brink.
As is his preference, Altuve jumped all over the first offering from Luke Jackson, sending it streaming to left.
It was a mighty blow that had home run written all over it. And for the majority of the ball’s flight, this appeared to be another in a long line of Altuve moments that the Astros have come to expect.
That is until Eddie Rosario reached out and made a leaping grab just before banging into the wall.
“It’s unbelievable what I did tonight,” said Rosario, who also had two hits and scored a run. “Wow, what a catch.”
It was a beautifully hit ball, that was more beautifully caught.
And it was the last threat from the Astros, who lost to Atlanta 3-2, and now will play to extend the series on Sunday night. Games 6 and 7 would be in Houston on Tuesday and Wednesday, but those contests will not be necessary if the Astros don’t find their missing offense.
They were 8-for-35 Saturday, with only one extra-base hit, but the team average improved to .206 in the World Series. They left 11 runners on base and were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position. That isn’t winning baseball.
Altuve and the Astros take no solace in the fact that his 375-foot out would have been a home run in 26 Major League parks, including Minute Maid in Houston.
Wrong place, wrong time.
Wrong year?
The Braves have certainly looked like a team of destiny this postseason.
The team with the fewest wins to make the playoffs, is one victory from its first championship since 1995.
Atlanta’s pitching has been stellar, but the Astros have not been anywhere near who they were earlier in the postseason.
In three of the four games in the World Series — all losses, mind you — the Astros have scored two or fewer runs and stranded more than 10 runners on base.
“They have good pitchers, and they’ve been executing every pitch,” Altuve said. “So, they’re not giving us a lot of pitches to hit. We’re trying hard as hitters.
“We’ve got a good lineup, we know, but sometimes you have to give credit to the other team as well.”
The Braves have held Houston to a total of two runs in two games at Truist Park this weekend. Those two runs held up for a while Saturday, until the first lead change in the series.
Cristian Javier, who had not allowed in the playoffs, came on in the bottom of the seventh and surrendered two solo home runs, as the Astros’ bullpen finally came back to earth. Hard.
As the stadium exploded in noise, chants, light shows and fireworks, the Astros saw their World Series hopes go from possible, even hopeful, to slim.
A 3-1 hole, with the Braves possibly closing out the series on Sunday is hardly what the Astros expected when they arrived in this cold, damp city.
But it is what you get when you don’t deliver offensively anywhere near what you are accustomed to.
Forty-one of the 48 teams (85.4 percent) that have taken a 3-1 lead in a World Series have gone on to win the championship. The last team to come back from that deficit is the 2016 Cubs.
“This is our house,” Rosario said. “We’re coming tomorrow with that energy and that focus. We know they’re a resilient group and they don’t give up, but we have our heads high right now, and we’re going to be ready to play.”
This was a game that could have, probably should have, been a blowout early on. But the Astros failed to deliver on opportunities in the first three innings.
Despite 10 baserunners in the first three innings, Houston managed just one run, with Altuve scoring on a groundout in the first, after the bases were loaded with one out.
The lead was down to 2-1, when Dansby Swanson got hold of a 95-mph fastball from Javier and launched it to right. Three pitches later, pinch-hitter Jorge Soler slapped a slider to left field, just clearing the wall over a leaping Jordan Alvarez.
The Astros, who had nursed a lead from their first at-bat, were suddenly behind and in trouble.
Life was much better early on, despite going 0-gor-7 with runners in scoring position in the first three inning, Houston opened a 2-0 lead thanks to Altuve.
The organist at Truist Park played “It’s A Small World” as Altuve stepped into the batter’s box in the fourth.
How true that is.
Everywhere Altuve goes, he seems to meet up with a clutch postseason home run.
There is no better response to such an attempted insult — not that Altuve even heard the music or recognized what song was playing — than a deep drive over the centerfield wall for a home run.
The “bomb” as Altuve described it to teammates in the dugout after he trotted around the bases, was his 23rd in playoffs, moving him into second place on the all-time list behind Manny Ramirez (29).
Altuve entered Saturday’s game hitting under .200 in the playoffs (.189). But he had been on base 18 times and scored 17 runs.
He scored only 14 runs in the 2017 and 2019 runs to the World Series, even after coming up just one shy of the MLB record for postseason hits two years ago.
He added two more runs on Saturday, but the Astros needed more.
Jerome.Solomon@chron.com
twitter.com/jeromesolomon
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