Astros win Game 3 of 2023 ALCS, trail series 2-1 – MLB.com

Brian McTaggart
ARLINGTON — There isn’t a team that’s more comfortable playing at Globe Life Field than the Astros, who returned to the site of their three-game destruction of the Rangers last month and broke out offensively Wednesday night in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.
Jose Altuve clubbed his 25th career postseason homer, and Martín Maldonado and Yordan Alvarez each had two-run singles with the bases loaded as the Astros beat the Rangers, 8-5, to win for the 17th time in their past 20 road games. Houston is 7-1 at Globe Life Field this season heading into Thursday’s Game 4 of the ALCS here.
In all best-of-seven postseason series, teams behind 2-1 after three games have gone on to win the series 44 of 148 times (30 percent). Teams that have won Game 3 after trailing 2-0 have come back to take the series 13 of 50 times (26 percent).
Astros starter Cristian Javier ran his streak of consecutive scoreless innings in the postseason to 20 1/3 by sending down 14 of the first 15 batters he faced. Josh Jung ended the streak with the first of his two home runs, but Houston’s offense was too much for Max Scherzer.
Maldonado’s two-run single capped Houston’s three-run second, and Altuve took Scherzer deep in the third for a 4-0 lead. It was 5-0 before Jung got the Rangers on the board, but Alvarez, who was robbed of a homer on a great catch by Leody Taveras at the center-field wall in the sixth, blooped a two-run single off reliever Will Smith in the seventh for a 7-2 lead.
Astros left fielder Michael Brantley made a great catch of his own to end the sixth when he ran nearly 90 feet in the gap to track down a ball off the bat of Adolis García, making a tumbling catch to strand a runner at second. Brantley couldn’t help but crack a smile, which was symbolic of the kind of night it was for Houston.

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