ATLANTA – The Houston Astros overcame a 4-0 1st-inning deficit to come back and beat the Atlanta Braves 9-5, prolonging the World Series and necessitating a Game 6 back at Minute Maid Park.
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The Braves had jumped out to their four-run lead off a grand slam by Adam Duvall off Astros’ starter Framber Valdez.
However, the Astros proved they had plenty of fight in them, even while trailing 4-0 after the first inning. Alex Bregman, whose struggles caused him to be dropped from third to seventh in the batting order, got the Astros on the board with a double in the second inning. Martin Maldonado added a sacrifice fly to chop the lead in half.
The Astros would then score two more runs in the next inning off a Carlos Correa RBI double and a run-scoring groundout by Yuli Gurriel. The Braves answered back in their half of the third when Freddie Freeman hit a 460-foot home run off of Valdez to help the Braves retake the lead 5-4.
Valdez would depart in the third inning, and a major key was the Astros bullpen completely shutting out the Braves from that point forward.
The offense would again come through in the fifth inning, when the two-out scoring the Astros had made a regular ALCS habit re-emerged. With the bases loaded and two gone in the inning, Maldonado worked a five-pitch walk to force in a run, tying the game. Then, Marwin Gonzalez, whose previous hit came on October 3, laced a two-run bloop single to stake the Astros to a 7-5 lead.
In the seventh, again with two outs, Maldonado would come through again, this time with a run-scoring single to left field to increase the lead to 8-5. That would help cap off a 3-RBI evening for Maldonado, who had driven in a total of two runs previously in this postseason.
Correa drove in Jose Altuve in the eighth inning to make it 9-5 Houston for the final margin.
The teams will now head to Houston for the remainder of the World Series, starting with Game 6 on Tuesday evening.