Reliving Springer's 2017 World Series MVP campaign

HOUSTON -- The clutch performance of Blue Jays outfielder George Springer during this year’s postseason, which included a dramatic three-run homer in the seventh inning of Monday’s Game 7 win over the Mariners in the American League Championship Series, looked awfully familiar to Astros fans.

Springer’s reputation as one of this generation’s greatest playoff performers began during his early days in Houston, where he represented the first in a wave of up-and-coming stars that helped transform the Astros from a last-place club that had three consecutive 100-loss seasons into the powerhouse team of the AL for nearly a decade.

Springer, taken with the No. 11 overall pick in the 2011 MLB Draft by Houston out of the University of Connecticut, blossomed into one of the most productive and popular players in Astros history, culminating with winning the 2017 World Series Most Valuable Player Award in the Astros’ win over the Dodgers – the same team Springer’s Blue Jays are playing this year’s Fall Classic.

Players like Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman, Lance McCullers Jr., Kyle Tucker and Yordan Alvarez followed Springer’s path through Houston’s pipeline to stardom -- and Springer was the first of the homegrown core players to leave in free agency (Correa and Bregman would follow).

Along the way, the high-flying Springer made three AL All-Star teams in Houston, won two Silver Slugger Awards and made countless breathtaking catches in the outfield.

When he left the Astros after the 2020 season, Springer ranked fifth all-time in franchise history in home runs with 174, sixth in OPS at .852 and was tied with Jim Wynn for fifth in adjusted OPS+ at 131. His legacy as an Astros legend was cemented long before he became one in Toronto, who signed him to a six-year, $150 million deal.

When the Blue Jays head to Dodger Stadium for Game 3 of the World Series next week, it will be a return to where Springer had some of his greatest postseason moments.

• Springer climbing up list of most postseason homers

After going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts in a Game 1 loss to the Dodgers in the 2017 World Series, Springer erupted and was 11-for-25 (.440) in the next six games with five homers and seven RBIs en route to winning the MVP Award.

He homered in four consecutive games, including a three-run homer in the second inning of Game 7 to give the Astros a 5-0 lead at Dodger Stadium. They won the game, 5-1, to beat the Dodgers behind Springer’s 1.471 OPS in the Series.

Springer was the third player to hit five home runs in a single Fall Classic, joining the Yankees' Reggie Jackson in 1977 and the Phillies' Chase Utley in 2009. He also set records for extra-base hits (eight) and total bases (29), and he became the first player in World Series history to homer in four straight games within a single World Series (Jackson and Lou Gehrig had done it over multiple World Series).

Springer hit the final go-ahead home run in the top of the 11th of the Astros' 7-6 victory in an epic Game 2 at Dodger Stadium. In a thrilling Game 5 in Houston, he made a costly misjudgment in the outfield -- diving at and missing Cody Bellinger’s RBI triple in the seventh as the Dodgers took an 8-7 lead -- but almost instantly redeemed himself with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the inning, as the Astros won, 13-12, in 10 innings.

Nobody had more hard-hit balls in the 2017 World Series, and Springer's Game 5 homer (Statcast-projected 110.3 mph, 438 feet) and Game 7 homer (111.9 mph, 448 feet) were the two hardest-hit and two longest homers of the record 25 hit in that year’s Fall Classic.

"After the first game, I had a talk with [teammate] Carlos Beltrán,” Springer said, "and he told me to just go out and kind of enjoy the moment, because he's been playing for 20 years and this is his second time here. He told me to go out and be who [I am] and kind of enjoy it."