Carlos Beltran hit two key yaks and then Bidg and Bags keyed a five run outburst in the seventh to put the game away as the Stros beat the Braves 12-3 in the fifth and deciding game of their National League Divisional Series on Monday night at Turner Field in Atlanta.
For the first time in their 43 year existence, the Stros now move on to the next playoff series, which is the National League Championship Series against the Cardinals. The first two games are Wednesday and Thursday nights in St. Louis, and then the next three games will be in Houston at the Juice Box on Saturday through Monday. I expect Pete Munro and Brandon Backe to pitch Games 1 and 2 in St. Louis, so the Stros need to keep their hitting shoes on.
Roy O battled like the gamer he is on three days rest and left the Stros with a 3-2 lead after five innings on the strength of Beltran’s first yak and two runs that were keyed by JK‘s second inning double.
However, this game was won in the sixth inning and the top of the seventh after the Braves had closed to 3-2 in the bottom of the fifth. First, in the top of the sixth, Beltran answered the Braves rally with his second solo yak to extend the Stros lead to 4-2. Then, in the bottom of the sixth, Chad Qualls came back from the trauma of blowing the Game 4 lead and put down the Braves in order for the first time in the game.
In the top of the seventh, Bidg keyed an incredible two out rally with a two strike single to plate a completely juiced Viz from second, who knocked down Estrada, allowing Bidg to race around to third when the throw to the plate got away. Beltran promptly knocked in Bidg for a 6-2 lead, and then Bags lifted the burden of failed playoffs past with a massive two run tater to left to give the Stros an insurmountable 8-2 lead. The Stros tacked on three more in the eighth (including Beltran’s fourth and fifth RBI’s) just to make sure that the Braves knew that their prior playoff dominance of the Stros was over for good. The Stros ended up with 17 hits as they continue their remarkable late season run to the next stage of the playoffs.
I have been a Stros fan for all the time I have lived in Houston, which is over 32 years now, and I have been a season ticket holder for the past 20. I get up on Tuesday mornings at 3 a.m. to help cook for a large Christian men’s breakfast group at my church in The Woodlands, but I found myself watching this game until the very end at almost 11:00 p.m. despite my early wakeup call and the fact that the game was already well in hand. When the final pitch made the win certain, I called my older son at college — who is a lifelong Stros fan and was watching the game just as intently as I was — and we laughed with each other on just how good it felt for Bags, Bidg and the rest of the Stros finally to win a playoff series after we had pulled for them together for so many years.
That one magic, joyous conversation between a father and a son made enduring every disappointment of the Stros’ past failures well worth it.