José Adolis García hit a grand slam in the ninth inning and the Texas Rangers beat the Houston Astros 9-2 in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.
Nathan Eovaldi remained undefeated throughout the playoffs, while Mitch Garver and Jonah Heim hit home runs early in the game.
Eovaldi, who also got the win in the second game of the series, gave up five hits and two runs in six and a third innings of work to improve his record this year in the playoffs to 4-0 with a 2.42 earned run average. .
The defending champion Astros didn’t get the desired performance from Framber Valdez, who allowed five hits and three runs with six strikeouts in five innings of work. Valdez is yet to win three playoff games this year, along with his 9.00 ERA.
In the eighth inning, Garver hit Bryan Abreu’s fly ball into left field and allowed Evan Carter, who was on second base at the time after stealing from first, to make it 4-2.
It was Garver’s third hit and second RBI of the game.
Next in the at-bat, Abreu hit a base hit to go to first base and pushed Alex Bregman, who had drawn a walk, to go to second base.
Kyle Tucker, next to bat, drew a walk from José Leclerc, who entered the game after Abreu’s single.
The Astros had the bases loaded with just one out, but were unable to take advantage. Leclerc ended the threat by eliminating Jon Singleton.
Rafael Montero was hot for the Astros in the ninth inning. Still with no outs and 4-2, the Rangers loaded the bases.
Ryne Stanek came in in relief, but things didn’t improve when he hit Corey Seager on his second pitch, and the Rangers added to the run to take a 5-2 lead with the automatic walk.
In the next at-bat, García hit a grand slam to make it 9-2.
The final game will be played on Monday night in Houston, with the Rangers, one of six major league teams to never win the World Series, one victory away from returning to the grand finals for the first time since their two-year run in 2010-11.
