Game 1 of the World Series between the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers was a classic pitchers dual. Game 2, not so much.
The Astros beat the Dodgers in an epic Game 2 at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night that will surely go down as an all-time classic. The teams combined for a whopping eight home runs, and six of them came in the ninth inning or later.
Eight home runs were hit, the most ever in a World Series, off six different pitchers, the most ever who yielded them in a World Series. All of the homers were hit by players 28 and younger, including one each by 6’ 4”, 23-year-old shortstops who define where baseball is going. Until Carlos Correa and Corey Seager came along, Cal Ripken had been the only shortstop that tall to hit 20 homers in a season. Correa and Seager have done it five times between them already. The players are getting bigger and putting more loft in their swings.
"When that last out is made, you finally breathe," Springer said. "That's an emotional high — emotional high to low to high again. But that's why we play the game. And that's the craziest game that I've ever played in. And it's only Game 2."
After another steamy night in a Santa Ana heat wave, the series shifts to Texas and resumes Friday night at Houston's Minute Maid Park, where the retractable roof has not been open for a game since June 9. Lance McCullers Jr. starts for the Astros and Yu Darvish for the Dodgers, who acquired him from Texas at the July 31 trade deadline.
Houston is 2-5 on the road in the postseason but 6-0 at home, where the Astros have outscored the Red Sox and Yankees by a combined 31-7.
