Same Old Train
We had a great time at Park Road Books in Charlotte last night, talked some baseball with
, it was a blast. A reminder:I’ll be in Dallas a week from today, Thursday, Oct. 26, at the Dallas Aaron Family JCC. Perfect timing for a World Series talk! Tickets here.
I’ll be at the Listening Room Cafe in Nashville on Nov. 1, and this one is going to be an all-time event, as I’ll be telling some baseball stories accompanied by the musical stylings of Country Music Hall of Famer Marty Stuart. Tickets here.
Astros 8, Rangers 5 (Texas leads the ALCS 2 games to 1)
You know what this playoffs needed? A game where one team pounces on the other’s starting pitcher for a bunch of early runs to take a huge lead, and then they go to the bullpen and the other team never gets within two runs and … oh, wait, I forgot, that’s been this whole playoffs.
There was a small difference in this one in that the Rangers, after falling behind 5-0, did show some life and sort of, kind of rally against the bullpen. Josh Jung hit two home runs. The Rangers scored against two of the three relievers. And we had a sort of, kind of interesting moment in the sixth inning. With the Astros lead down to three runs and a runner on second, Texas’ Adolis Garcia hit a shot into the left-center gap that would have scored a run, but Houston’s leftfielder, Michael Brantley, made a pretty dazzling defensive play.
The play, if you want to be a party pooper, probably looked a little better than it was — Brantley himself admitted he got a poor jump on the ball, and the numbers back him up — but, hey, Brantley found some unexpected speed in those 36-year-old legs, and he chased the ball down, and it saved a run, maybe more, and in these playoffs, we take our thrills where we can get them.
There were a few interesting things about this game: