For the 39th time in World Series history, we’ve made it to Game 7. Thirty-nine Game 7s might sound like a whole lot, but this is the 113th World Series ever played: just over one-third of those Fall Classics made it this far.
The World Series comes down to Game 7 yet again
Wednesday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at the upcoming Game 7 between the Astros and the Dodgers.
Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images
We’ve had quite a few lately, as 2011, 2014, and 2016 all went seven games. Before that, though, the most recent ones had been 2002 and 2001, and there were just two seven-game World Series in the 90s, so baseball can go through slower periods that are missing Game 7s, too. Let’s enjoy each Game 7 when we get the chance to, because who knows when the next 10-year drought will begin.
The Astros had a chance to win their first World Series championship in franchise history -- a history that dates back to 1962 when they were, briefly, the Houston Colt .45’s -- but even without a lengthy Rich Hill start, the Dodgers were able to prevent that and force a Game 7.
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Now, no matter what, this is the end. The Astros will win their first-ever championship, or the Dodgers will end their near 30-year championship drought, as their last World Series appearance and victory came back when Orel Hersisher, who last pitched in 2000, was the same age Clayton Kershaw is now.
It will be Yu Darvish — who was knocked out of Game 3 in Houston so early it marked the shortest start of his career — taking on Lance McCullers, who had an up-and-down 2017 and has seen that continue in the postseason. When he’s been on, though, he looks like no one can stop him.
This game is what the Dodgers acquired Darvish for, so they didn’t have to run Clayton Kershaw out there on short rest again. As for McCullers, the Astros have to hope the curveball-centric right-hander is having one of his up nights. He came up huge in the ALCS, and pitched well in his lone World Series start until the bullpen failed to strand either of his bequeathed baserunners.
Either team can win this game. They’re equally matched in many ways, and that’s even more the case here before Game 7, where the Dodgers’ bullpen is better but just a little bit more fatigued after Game 6, and Darvish is the better starter unless he’s not quite right like happened in Game 3. In about 10 hours from this writing, there won’t be anymore guessing or predicting. It’ll just be Game 7, and then that will be that for 2017.
- You couldn’t guarantee this World Series would go seven games, but how could it not given everything it’s given us in the first six? Grant Brisbee goes over what the 2017 World Series has been so far, and what it can still be, in preparation for Game 7.
- In Game 6, Dave Roberts kept going to the relievers who had burned him in Game 5 due to fatigue, but somehow, it all worked out for the Dodgers. That day off between games did a lot of work for Los Angeles.
- Roberts trusted his pen to succeed, and as Eric Stephen writes, that trust paid off.
- Dodgers fans booed Yuli Gurriel in the first World Series game in Los Angeles following Gurriel’s racist gesture against Yu Darvish. Hill helped the boos out by stepping off the mound to let them continue.
- A local artist turned a house into a Dodgers’ billboard.
- Not to belabor this point too much, but there’s a path where the Astros are already World Series champions because they trusted Charlie Morton more in Game 4.
- This is the first World Series between 100-win teams to go seven games since 1931.
- The Astros will now have to win back-to-back Game 7s to win the World Series, which as Jayson Stark points out, is incredibly rare.
- David Roth wrote about this incredible World Series, and how it’s reshaping baseball and how it’s viewed.
- Lindsey Adler at Deadspin wrote about how baseball lets you lose your mind.
- Here are the best (and worst) Halloween costumes from athletes in 2017.
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