SEATTLE (AP) — Jeremy Peña homered within the 18th inning, and the Houston Astros beat the Seattle Mariners 1-0 on Saturday to advance to the AL Championship Sequence for the sixth straight 12 months.
Peña drove a slider from Penn Murfee deep to left-center for the rookie shortstop’s first playoff homer, offering the one run in a day filled with dominant pitching and empty journeys to the plate. The 18 innings matched the longest recreation in playoff historical past.
Spoiling Seattle’s first dwelling playoff look since 2001, Houston accomplished a three-game sweep of the ALDS. Subsequent up is the New York Yankees or Cleveland Guardians in Sport 1 of the ALCS on Wednesday.
Whereas Yordan Alvarez bought the massive hits within the first two video games in Houston, it was Pena that set the desk for Alvarez’s alternatives. As Sport 3 made its method into its sixth hour, Peña delivered one other painful blow to the Mariners that ended their quick return to the postseason.
After 21 years, Seattle followers welcomed playoff baseball again inside T-Cell Park. They bought their cash’s price, after which some.
Three earlier playoff video games reached the 18th inning earlier than conclusion, one involving Houston. The Astros beat the Atlanta Braves 7-6 in 18 innings in Sport 4 of the 2005 NLDS on Chris Burke’s game-ending homer.
Sport 2 of the 2014 NLDS between San Francisco and Washington and Sport 3 of the 2018 World Sequence between Los Angeles and Boston additionally went 18 innings.
However these video games had runs. This one failed to provide something till Peña’s swing on a 3-2 pitch.
Seattle’s finest scoring likelihood was Julio Rodríguez’s line drive that thudded off the wall within the eighth inning. Seattle had runners in scoring place within the thirteenth and seventeenth, however couldn’t get a key two-out hit in opposition to Houston’s very good bullpen.
Not like baseball’s common season, there isn’t any automated runner when playoff video games go to additional innings.
Luis Garcia labored 5 innings for the win. The Astros bullpen allowed 5 hits and struck out 15 following six innings from starter Lance McCullers Jr.
Seattle’s bullpen was practically simply nearly as good. After rookie George Kirby threw seven innings, 9 Mariners relievers mixed for 11 innings of five-hit ball.
The groups mixed to strike out 42 occasions, topping the postseason document of 39 set by the Guardians and Rays final week of their AL wild-card matchup that was scoreless for 15 innings earlier than Oscar Gonzalez’s dwelling run despatched Cleveland to the ALDS.
Houston superior regardless of a tough efficiency for Jose Altuve, who went 0 for 8 in Sport 3 for the primary time in his profession and was hitless in 16 at-bats within the sequence.
Altuve joined Xander Bogaerts in Sport 3 of 2018 World Sequence versus the Dodgers as solely gamers to go 0 for 8 or worse in a postseason recreation. However Houston’s different items got here via, none greater than its younger shortstop who took on a outstanding function after Carlos Correa departed in free company.
Peña’s homer was his solely hit in eight at-bats. But it surely was his contributions within the first two video games that helped Houston journey to Seattle with a 2-0 lead within the sequence.
For Mariners followers, watching the drama play out was an agonizing swing of feelings and nerves for the higher a part of the 6 hours and 22 minutes.
Strains snaked exterior the doorway hours earlier than first pitch. Half the stadium appeared crammed 90 minutes earlier than Seattle took the sector and all seats have been occupied when Felix Hernandez walked out from middle area to throw out a ceremonial first pitch to a deafening ovation.
The vitality and noise that accompanied twenty years of anticipation was pure exhilaration at first, however turned an increasing number of nervous the longer zeros stayed on the scoreboard. By the point the 14th-inning stretch was celebrated nearing the five-hour mark, these followers have been on the verge of exhaustion and prepared for finality.
It didn’t come till 4 innings later and was a disappointing conclusion after twenty years of ready.
KING RETURNS
Hernandez spent 15 seasons with the Mariners however by no means had the chance of pitching within the postseason. Hernandez gained 169 video games and had a profession 3.42 ERA, final pitching for Seattle in 2019.
SMOKEY AIR
Seattle’s return to the postseason was performed with a smoky haze and horrible air high quality engulfing the Puget Sound area. A shift in winds and wildfire nonetheless smoldering within the Cascade Mountains created a dingy haze above T-Cell Park. The air high quality index in Seattle at first pitch registered at 161.