The Houston Astros beat the New York Yankees 2-1 in Saturday's Game 2 of the American League Championship Series (GameTracker).
The last play of the game doubled as the contest's most important. To set the scene: Jose Altuve was at first base when Carlos Correa lined a ball to right field. Correa and Altuve had both safely advanced two bases as Aaron Judge's throw reached Didi Gregorius right around the bag. Yet Altuve wasn't satisfied. He jetted home, and made it in safely -- despite the ball beating him to the plate by a fair margin. Here's video of the play:
Astros win 2-1. pic.twitter.com/LxVecH2Jif
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) October 14, 2017
There are a few key elements worth dissecting that reveal how the Astros effectively stole the game.
We'll begin with Altuve, whose wheels made the whole thing possible. Though he isn't a stereotypical burner -- he ranks in the 100s in Statcast's Sprint Speed, and finished as the third-quickest Astro, behind outfielders Derek Fisher and Jake Marisnick -- he is nonetheless a quality baserunner. To wit, Altuve has averaged 33 steals over the last three years at a 78 percent success rate -- he's also taken the extra base nearly half the time over the same period.
To take it a step further, Altuve is used to scoring from first on doubles. During the regular season, he faced nine such situations -- he scored six times. For his career, he's touched home on 30 of the 58 doubles he's seen while standing at first. That's not too surprising, given the Astros are one of the most aggressive teams when it comes to scoring from first -- their team-wide 45.6 percent rate clip ranked seventh in the majors during the regular season.
But, while Altuve's aggressiveness wasn't too surprising in a vacuum, it was stunning to see him attempt to score on this play. That's because Judge did get the ball to the infield in ample time, even though he was a little slow on the exchange and didn't hit cutoff man Starlin Castro. Gregorius, in turn, was able to deliver a strong, if slightly short throw to the plate -- that despite Correa's best efforts to serve as a pick:
The ball beat Altuve to the plate by a fair margin. Yet catcher Gary Sanchez couldn't make the pick, and didn't recover quickly enough to have a play. As such, no one will discuss whether Altuve should have been running -- just that he did, and that his best paid off. Let that be a lesson to everyone who is quick to criticize third-base coaches for sending a runner into an out: it takes a lot of things going well for a relay play to be successful. A mistake, slight or otherwise, is sometimes all it takes to make a silly decision look brilliant.
It's fair to say the Altuve decision looks brilliant after the fact, now that the Astros are up 2-0 and the overwhelming favorites to claim the AL pennant.
