Even better for Dusty Baker’s bunch, who hadn’t seen their starting pitcher register as many as nine outs, Framber Valdez threw an astonishing eight innings of one-run, three-hit ball — the longest start of this entire postseason — providing a plethora of rest for the relievers in preparation for Game 6.
“It’s something that I thought immediately as soon as they took me out of the first game (with two outs in the third),” Valdez explained through an interpreter: “ ‘Whatever happens, I’m throwing at least seven innings in my next outing.’ ”.
“He really put the team on his shoulders tonight,” Yordan Alvarez said through an interpreter of Valdez.
Alvarez took on a shoulder-full himself, providing a homer, double and single and three RBIs against Red Sox veteran southpaw Chris Sale, who pitched his best game of 2021 despite taking a beating from the lefty-swinging Alvarez.
And coincidentally or not, the Astros followed by blowing the game open against Sale and reliever Ryan Brasier
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