HOUSTON -- Yuli Gurriel has been held quiet during the 2019 postseason, but there was nothing silent about his swing in the second inning of Wednesday night’s World Series Game 7 at Minute Maid Park.
Gurriel entered hitting just .235 this postseason, but his second-inning home run sent the crowd into a frenzy. The 35-year-old ended the top of the inning with a nifty defensive play at first, then he opened the bottom half by launching a home run off Max Scherzer to give the Astros the early 1-0 lead.
Gurriel’s fifth career postseason home run -- and second of this postseason -- had an exit velocity of 100.8 mph.
While Gurriel’s solo shot put Houston on the board, it was unable to add more runs in what appeared to be a promising inning -- until the fifth, when Carlos Correa laced a two-out RBI single off the glove of diving third baseman Anthony Rendon to bring in Gurriel and make it a 2-0 game entering the sixth.
The Astros were unable to make that lead stand, though, with the Nationals putting up runs in the seventh, eighth and ninth to hand Houston a 6-2 defeat and claim the World Series.
In the second, the Astros had two on with nobody out, but an unsuccessful bunt by Robinson Chirinos resulted in the first out of the inning. Josh Reddick then grounded out to first for the second out and Scherzer was able to escape, retiring George Springer on a hard liner to left field.