Astro - Nomical

This may have been one of the best and most evenly matched World Series ever, but in Game 7, it didn’t look like it.

The Houston Astros scored five runs in the first two innings, the Los Angeles Dodgers were unable to take advantage of being able to put runners on base in seemingly every inning, and the Astros came up with a 5-1 victory on Wednesday in Game 7 of the World Series to give Houston their first ever world championship.

The game took an immediate ugly turn for the Dodgers. The white-hot George Springer led the game off with a double down the third base line, and Alex Bregman hit a chopper that should have just advanced him to third. Cody Bellinger inexplicably cut the ball off, and made a disastrous throw to starter Yu Darvish that wasn’t close, allowing Bregman to get to second and Springer to score. After Bregman stole third, a ground out to Bellinger -- who appeared shy to throw the baseball -- scored him to give the Astros a 2-0 lead.

One inning later, things got worse for L.A. After walking Brian McCann and giving up a double to Marwin Gonzalez, Darvish was able to get Josh Reddick out. With runners on second-and-third and pitcher Lance McCullers at the plate, the Dodgers inexplicably didn’t have the infield in, and McCullers weak ground ball was hit just far enough to allow McCann to score from third to make it 3-0. On the next pitch, Springer clobbered a 438 foot dinger to left-center to make it 5-0, and chase Darvish from the game.

After Darvish left, the Dodgers bullpen -- particularly Clayton Kershaw -- was able to keep Houston from adding on, but it didn’t matter. Even though McCullers gave up more baserunners (eight) than outs (7), and the Dodgers routinely put runners on against the rest of the Houston staff, they were unable to take advantage of their opportunities.

Even if this game was borderline anticlimactic, what a tremendous series this ended up being. These two teams were clearly evenly matched, and they became even more when the pitching staff of both clubs faltered; be it due to ineffectiveness, fatigue or a combination of both. Simply put, you’d be hard-pressed to find better back-to-back Fall Classics in this sport when you combine this with last year’s Cubs vs. Indians seven-game thriller.

This sport is gonna be okay, folks. Here’s hoping we have another classic on our hands at this point in 2018.

Quick hits: Tony La Russa is expected to join the Red Sox organization on Thursday. The former Athletics, Cardinals and White Sox manager has served the last three years in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization … Diamondbacks OF J.D. Martinez hired Scott Boras to be his new agent. Martinez is a free agent after hitting 45 homers for Arizona and the Tigers, respectively … The Brewers outrighted OF Quintin Barry and RHP Carlos Torres to Triple-A Colorado Springs on Thursday … The Blue Jays outrighted three players on Thursday; RHP Bo Schultz, RHP Cesar Valdez, and OF Darrell Ceciliani … Astros assistant hitting coach Alonzo Powell will be named the hitting coach of the Giants this week.