Facing elimination for the second game in a row, the Houston Astros made history on Thursday. Carlos Correa hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to give Houston a 4-3 win. The Rays are now just the fourth team in history to be forced to play a Game 6 after taking a 3-0 series lead.
Tampa Bay will be the home team on Friday in the series being played at Petco Park in San Diego.
Correa's walks off Astros in Game 5
With the win on Thursday, the Houston Astros became just the fourth of 38 teams to force a sixth game after falling behind 3-0 in the MLB playoffs. The only team to ever force a Game 7 was the Boston Red Sox, who completed their comeback in the ALCS against the New York Yankees and went on to win the World Series in 2004.
In the postseason, Houston is averaging 4.8 runs per game and allowing 3.7. The Astros are batting .270 as a team and averaging 1.9 home runs per game. Carlos Correa, who hit a walk-off home run to give Houston the Game 5 win, leads all of MLB with 14 postseason RBI and is tied for first with six home runs. Correa is also batting .342 with a .457 on-base percentage. Jose Altuve has struggled defensively but has been strong with the bat, hitting .341 with five home runs and 10 RBI.
Houston will start Framber Valdez with the season on the line. Valdez was 5-3 with a 3.57 ERA and 1.12 WHIP during the regular season. Valdez is 2-1 with a 2.00 ERA and 1.00 WHIP in three appearances over 18 innings with 17 strikeouts and seven walks. Valdez allowed two earned runs, with eight strikeouts and four walks in six innings of the Astros 2-1 loss in Game 1.
Rays offense struggled with runners on in Game 5
After going up 3-0 in the series, the Tampa Bay Rays will make their third attempt to close out the series on Friday. The Rays scored all three runs in Thursday's loss on solo home runs by Randy Arozarena, Brandon Lowe, and Ji-Man Choi. However, Tampa Bay missed several opportunities to score more, going 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position and leaving nine men on base for the game.
As a team, the Rays are batting .210 averaging 4.1 runs per game and allowing 3.3 runs. Randy Arozena leads the team with six home runs, eight RBI, and a .417 batting average. After Arozarena, no other Rays hitters with at least 15 at-bats are batting above .250 in the postseason, but Manuel Margot and Mike Zunino have both hit three homes runs.
Blake Snell, who is 2-1 with a 2.87 ERA and 1.21 WHIP with 15 strikeouts and six walks in the postseason, will start Game 6. Snell was 4-2 with a 3.24 ERA and 1.20 ERA during the regular season. During the regular season, Snell is 2-2 with a 4.73 ERA in six starts against Houston.
Notable Trends
- Under is 7-0 in Rays last 7 playoff games.
- Astros are 9-1 in their last 10 playoff games as an underdog of +110 to +150.
