Houston Takes Back the Driver’s Seat in Game 4 Shellacking

The Houston Astros evened up the World Series in convincing fashion Saturday night, defeating the Washington Nationals 8-1 in a game that was only in doubt for a few, relatively brief moments. With this win, the Astros reset the World Series into a best-of-three in which they have home-field advantage. By forcing a Game 6, regardless of the outcome of tonight’s Game 5, Houston guarantees that their last game of the year will be in front of their fans.

If there’s one thing that no one should be surprised about, it’s baseball’s ability to surprise. If you were talking to a friend who hasn’t been following the World Series, and told them a tale of a clutch Astros starter throwing five shutout innings on the sport’s biggest stage, they might think you were referring to the team’s 225-win, future Hall of Famer. Or maybe the Cy Young favorite who went undefeated for most of the season, or at least the ace pitcher picked up from the Diamondbacks in a blockbuster July trade.

Your friend in this theoretical may be extraordinarily well-informed and name Jose Urquidy, but three months ago, few would have expected Urquidy to be Houston’s firewall to prevent the team from falling to a 3-1 World Series deficit. The 24-year-old rookie not only isn’t an established veteran; he can’t even claim to be a phenom prospect making good on unlimited potential. Urquidy was barely on the prospect radar (he is currently 19th in the org on THE BOARD), a pitcher with a decent fastball and changeup, and good command, but little dazzle and an injury-shortened minor league career.

With their rotation ranking fourth in baseball in WAR, the Astros didn’t envision having fourth-starter questions in the playoffs. The acquisition of Zack Greinke appeared to make Wade Miley one of the game’s best fourth starters, completing the team’s playoff rotation. But Houston also didn’t envision that Miley, who sported an ERA under three as late as August, struggling immensely down the stretch. Miley pitched himself out of the rotation and then the playoffs entirely, leaving the Astros with something of a situation. A fourth starter wasn’t needed in the ALDS with its ample off-days, and any awkwardness in the ALCS was compensated for by the fact that the Yankees had the same worry.

But down 2-1 in the World Series, the lack of a plug-and-play starter for Game 4 was more considerably more distressing. Houston’s bullpen has several hurlers with plenty of experience as starters — Brad Peacock and Josh James most notably — but with the Big Three of Cole, Verlander, and Strasburg having been unimpressive in their starts, the relief corps had already covered more than their expected share of innings.

In the most important game of his career (so far), Urquidy didn’t disappoint. Unlike most of the other starters in the Fall Classic, Urquidy doesn’t have the sharp curve or a knee-buckling slider to make batters look foolish. He lives by attacking the strike zone, not luring batters off of it, relying on 94-96 mph fastballs high and in, and changing speeds as necessary. When he does this well, it leverages his slider and curve into pitches that play up. In his rookie season, batters whiffed on 48% of the Urquidy sliders they offered at, a percentage better than Verlander’s (40%) and nearly the match of Corbin’s (51%). Not bad for a pitch he was still tinkering with during September.

And that’s precisely what happened to the Nationals. Urquidy went right after them like a 12-year-veteran and left after the fifth with a 4-0 lead. If things had turned out differently — and it briefly appeared they would when Josh James walked two batters, and Will Harris allowed an infield single to load the bases — manager A.J. Hinch would have had his decision to pull Urquidy second-guessed for a long time. It’s understandable given the extent to which Urquidy was cruising, the fact that he wasn’t actually lifted for a pinch-hitter, and the state of rest of the Astro bullpen. While I think I would have let Urquidy start the sixth, in this case, I believe yanking him was defensible; the game was still reasonably low-leverage, and the Astros have been adamant about watching his innings total, already at his professional high. A third time through the order, it’s more than conceivable that the Nationals would have been able to more effectively counteract Urquidy’s game plan.

For Patrick Corbin, the game was the polar opposite. When Corbin’s on, he owns the corners and dares batters to swing at outrageously low sliders, typically ineffectively. The Astros instead showed a good deal of patience, especially early. Of Corbin’s six first-inning sliders clearly out of the strike zone, the Astros casually watched all of them called balls. Corbin’s slider was more effective in later innings, but the Astros continued to hit him hard, putting five balls in play with velocity off the bat of at least 100 mph and a total of 13 at at least 90 mph. Based on the xBA of hits against Corbin, the expectation was eight hits allowed in six innings. With seven actual hits, Corbin can’t blame the fickle nature of the BABIP gods.

If a 4-1 deficit wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle for the Nationals, Tanner Rainey and Fernando Rodney quickly made it one in the seventh. Rainey walked Kyle Tucker and George Springer, all on fastballs, before Rodney came in and immediately allowed a single to Michael Brantley, loading the bases. Rodney cleared the bases in the most efficient manner possible, giving up a grand slam to Alex Bregman to put the game in no doubt territory.

Rodney proceeded to load up the bases again via walks before Wander Suero struck out Kyle Tucker to bring the inning to a merciful end.

By the ZiPS projections, the World Series probability tips back in favor of the Astros, 61%-39%. If you doubt that Game 4 was a crucial one, a Nationals wins would have left the projection at 81-19% Nats. You could fairly say that this win was worth 0.42 World Series championships. Whether or not the Astros take home their second championship in three years, Saturday’s performance gives rookie Jose Urquidy an important page in the franchise’s history books.