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Astros finally catch some breaks in life-saving Game 3 victory

Patrick Smith / Getty Images Sport / Getty

If George Springer's chintzy leadoff single Friday in Game 3 of the World Series felt like an omen that the Houston Astros' fortunes were beginning to turn - with an exit velocity of 62.4 mph, his dribbler wouldn't have earned a speeding ticket on most interstates - that frisson of optimism lasted only a few seconds.

In the very next at-bat, Jose Altuve - one of the few Astros who'd actually managed to do something through the club's two losses to the Washington Nationals - laced a ball to deep center field. It came off the bat nearly twice as hard as Springer's single. It looked like a double. Empirically, it should've been a hit: balls struck that hard with that launch angle produce an expected batting average of .640, according to Baseball Savant. Somehow, though, Victor Robles, the Nationals' preternaturally gifted center fielder, managed to track Altuve's laser - hit directly over his head - onto the warning track, then time a preposterously acrobatic leap well enough to corral the ball for the first out of the game. Springer, who was chugging for third when Robles made the grab, retreated back to first just in time. The rally was squashed, and the Astros were ultimately held scoreless in the top of the first. That initial moment of renewed hope was just that, a moment.

And, ultimately, that half-inning was itself a bigger moment in the broader narrative of Houston's to-that-point disastrous World Series, a string of failures (both on the field and off) that had put the prohibitive favorites into a 2-0 hole - not quite insurmountable, but pretty hard to get out of. Through the first two games, a tightly contested 5-4 loss followed by an embarrassing 12-3 shellacking, next to nothing had gone right for Houston, and this - Robles catching a nearly uncatchable ball to pour water on a first-inning rally - felt like the latest installment in a series of unfortunate events for the team.

In Game 1, for starters, the seemingly unbeatable Gerrit Cole lost for the first time since May, serving up as many runs (5) as he had over his previous eight starts combined. In Game 2, Justin Verlander sullied an otherwise solid start by serving up a go-ahead homer to Kurt Suzuki to lead off the seventh inning before the Astros' bullpen destroyed any notion of a comeback with a full-on implosion.

All the while, the Astros' offense - which, at the risk of belaboring the point, was the second-best of the live-ball era - couldn't muster a timely hit, going just 3-for-17 (.176) with runners in scoring position. Several key hitters, moreover, were just flat-out scuffling: Alex Bregman went 1-for-8 (.125) in Games 1 and 2, albeit with a two-run homer off Stephen Strasburg, while Carlos Correa had gone just 1-for-9 (.111) with four strikeouts. Houston wasn't getting any luck, either: Through the series' first two games, the Astros' weighted on-base average was 45 points lower than their expected weighted on-base average, while Washington's was 90 points higher.

And while Houston's misery indeed persisted into Game 3, which was as close to a must-win as a non-elimination game can get, it swiftly abated after that improbable Robles grab. From that point on, in a stark reversal of fortune, nearly everything went right for the Astros, who parlayed a series of well-placed balls, favorable bounces, and minor miscues from the Nationals to a 4-1 win that trimmed their series deficit to 2-1 and resuscitated their floundering World Series hopes.

After Correa stroked a one-out double to left off Anibal Sanchez in the top of the second, Josh Reddick - hitless to that point in the series - doinked a soft liner to the opposite field, the ball practically yawning as it sailed toward shallow left at 62.1 mph. Batted balls with similar exit velocities produced an expected batting average of just .165 this season. Reddick's blooper dropped in safely, though, dying right between the converging Juan Soto and shortstop Trea Turner. Correa, who read base hit almost immediately, rounded third and broke for home just as Soto corralled the ball in left. A good throw might've gotten him at the plate. Instead, Soto launched the ball halfway to Baltimore, airmailing it over Suzuki's head and allowing Correa to score. 1-0 Astros.

In the following inning, Altuve ripped a liner into the left-field corner to lead off the frame, ostensibly for a double. The ball, however, slipped under Soto's glove as he tried to pick it up and fire it back to the infield, enabling Altuve to waltz to third. He came home moments later when Michael Brantley slapped a hard grounder back at Sanchez, who had it deflect off his glove and into no man's land. That particular batted ball had an expected batting average of - wait for it - .160. It shouldn't have been a hit, and it definitely shouldn't have resulted in a run. Altuve doesn't score, after all, if he isn't on third base. But he was. 2-0 Astros.

Houston's hitters weren't the only beneficiaries of some good luck on Friday, though. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Zack Greinke - whose pedestrian October continued with his third outing of fewer than five innings in four starts this postseason - was gifted a pivotal out from Nationals manager Dave Martinez, allowing the veteran right-hander to weasel out of a jam and leave the tying run at third base. Instead of lifting Sanchez for a pinch hitter with one out and Robles, representing the tying run, 90 feet away, Martinez opted to let his starter "hit." Predictably, Sanchez struck out on three pitches, botching bunt attempts for the first and third strikes and ultimately failing to drive Robles in. Greinke induced a groundout from Trea Turner moments later, preserving his club's lead. 2-1 Astros.

Then, in the bottom of the fifth, after Brantley squeaked a single through the right side of the infield to extend Houston's lead to 3-1, fortune similarly smiled on Josh James, who came in to relieve Greinke with two outs and a runner on first. Though the first batter he faced, Asdrubal Cabrera, promptly smoked a double off the right-field wall, it was hit too hard for Adam Eaton to score all the way from first, the hard carom coming right back to Reddick and forcing Eaton to hold up at third. Like Robles the inning prior, he'd be stranded there. The Nationals wouldn't have another baserunner get past second.

Now, the Astros are back in this thing in earnest, not because of any particularly notable Game 3 performances - Will Harris, who pitched out of a sixth-inning jam before tossing a perfect seventh, actually led the team in win probability added - but because, unlike in Games 1 and 2, the bounces went their way and the other team failed to capitalize on its opportunities. They've avoided the death knell that is a 3-0 deficit, and they now need to win just one of their next two games to send the series back to Houston with Verlander available on full rest for a potential Game 6.

Insofar as momentum exists in baseball, in other words, the Astros have some. And that has to be disconcerting for the Nationals, because the Astros are, despite their lackluster performance through the first three games of this series, a really good team. Manager AJ Hinch reaffirmed as much after his club's embarrassing Game 2 loss.

"We'll be fine," Hinch told reporters. "We're a really good team. We'll be fine."

Of course, Hinch's "we'll be fine" conceit was entirely contingent on securing a victory in Game 3. But thanks to a bit of good luck, the Astros did that. Now they're back in this thing. They can still show the world how good they are.

Jonah Birenbaum is theScore's senior MLB writer. He steams a good ham. You can find him on Twitter @birenball.

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