Oral History: How Texas Rangers, Astros Rivalry Was Born
HOUSTON – It's about time.
The Silver Boot Series showed some teeth for the first time in a long time. And for the first time since 2015, the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros are in a Texas-sized tussle for the AL West championship.
The Rangers answered two Astros wins with an emphatic 13-5 pounding in the series finale Wednesday before a sell-out crowd at Minute Maid Park.
The game included two hit batters, umpire warnings, several dramatic home runs, a benches-clearing jawing match at home plate, and the Rangers' Marcus Semien and Astros' Martin Maldonado getting ejected.
The Rangers (60-43) left Houston with a two-game lead on the Astros (58-45) in the AL West. The Astros lead the season series 6-4. The teams meet for the final time Sept. 4-6 at Globe Life Field
Here's how it all transpired, according to the players and managers involved:
Rangers starting pitcher Andrew Heaney: I gave up a three-run homer in the first and I get 0-2 on [Yordan] Alvarez and I’m absolutely not trying to hit him. I’m trying to go up and in, keep him off the dish and probably throwing a slider after that. It got away from me and hit him. I’m not trying to hit anybody there.
Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien: Obviously, Andrew did not try to hit Yordan and I got hit with a four-seam fastball from a sinkerballer [on the first pitch he saw in the third inning from Astros pitcher Framber Valdez]. I felt like it was on purpose. I walked to first base. (Pitch-tracker labeled the pitch a 94.8 mph sinker.)
Nathaniel Lowe hits a two-run homer to pull the Rangers to within 3-2 later in the inning.
Semien: I ended up scoring on the home run, I told Martin ‘we’re going to win this game’ and we proceeded to score 11 runs after that.
Semien avenged the HBP against Valdez with a homer during a four-run fourth inning and shot several glares toward the mound as he rounded the bases and exchanged words with Maldonado as he headed back to the dugout.
Rangers manager Bruce Bochy: I didn’t get it really, to be honest. I guess their guy thought we were trying to hit Alvarez. We’re trying to get out of the first inning, we’re trying to win a ballgame. So I was a little stunned that they hit Marcus. I just love the way [the team] responded. Marcus fired everybody up ... next at-bat hits a home run.
Semien: Anytime a guy gets hit it’s between the pitcher and catcher and whoever, the manager, whoever’s decision it was, I get hit. It was on purpose, and I’m not just going to take that. It definitely fueled us, and we got the win when we needed it most.
Astros manager Dusty Baker: This is the time of year when tempers are short and you’ve played a lot of games and there’s a lot of emotion out there. When you jaw at a guy, you expect to get something in return. Maldy wasn’t going to go away like he was some little punk.
Bochy: [It's important] not just to win today, but how we won. To get down, how we responded after Marcus got drilled. You’re talking about karma at its finest. I really think that was the case because there is no way Andrew is trying to hit somebody. He's ahead in the count, we’re trying to get him out of the first inning, but it is what it is.
Maldonado: It's something that just happened between the lines. I don't think you have to go through every single detail. It's two guys trying to compete, two good teams that are playing for the division.
Adolis Garcia's grand slam during a seven-run fifth put the Rangers up 13-3. When Semien, who scored on the play, continued his verbal back-and-forth with Maldonado at home plate as Garcia rounded the bases. Before Garcia reached home, tensions had hit a boiling point and the benches and bullpens descended on home plate into a brief scrum. Semien and Maldonado were ejected.
Semien: After I scored on Adolis’ grand slam, I told [Maldonado] ‘I told you we were going to win this game.’ And then all of a sudden their bench is out there and both of us are out of the game. I didn’t want to get thrown out of the game. We’ve competed for a lot of years.
Rangers first baseman Nathaniel Lowe: [Semien] is a big-time player and he made a big-time play. He got emotional and rightfully so. There was some talking coming from the dugout and it’s tough to compartmentalize when coaches are getting involved and players are getting involved. But again, it’s a baseball fight, so nobody is really punching anybody. You get in the pile and shove each other and maybe call each other a couple of names.
In the third inning, Valdez threw a ball-four wild pitch that came close to Lowe's head.
Lowe: [That pitch] definitely had something to do with [the escalation] I felt like, and Adolis got a chance to capitalize and he did. Again, another big-time player making a big-time play for us.
Bochy: I didn’t agree with [Semien's] ejection. If I got hit, I’d be chirping too after a home run or if I scored a run. They had a little chit-chat so [the umpires] felt like it was time to do something, I guess, in their mind to keep things under control. Do I agree? No. But to be honest, I didn’t mind resting Marcus with a big lead.
Heaney on Semien: How he goes, we go. I think everybody is pretty fired up. It’s a big series. We played some close ones and didn’t come out on top in the first two games. Regardless of all of the extra stuff that happened, this was a game we wanted to win, we needed to win.
Semien: We have the best offense in the major leagues and we showed it tonight. We faced their top [pitcher], they got [Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez] back in the lineup, they probably felt confident and we did what we had to do tonight.
You can follow Stefan Stevenson on Twitter @StefanVersusTex.
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