ARLINGTON, Texas — The streaky Texas Rangers are suddenly headed the wrong way again.
The 10-3 loss to the Houston Astros in Game 4 on Thursday night that evened the AL Championship Series at 2-all was the second defeat in a row for Texas - both at home - after a 7-0 postseason start.
Now Texas has to stop the Astros’ seven-game winning streak at Globe Life Field in Game 5 on Friday, or the defending champs would go home needing one win for a third consecutive World Series trip.
Not that going home is much of a comfort for Houston, just 40-45 at Minute Maid Park, postseason included.
“We’ve got to stay light,” Texas first baseman Nathaniel Lowe said. “We need to make sure the home crowd’s involved a little bit better. If we score first, we’re in a good spot.”
Neither home team has taken a lead in the first four games of the first postseason meeting between the instate AL West rivals - just the seventh best-of-seven series in which that has occurred, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
PHOTOS: Streaky Rangers suddenly headed wrong way again with Game 4 loss as Astros even ALCS
Texas fell behind 3-0 as Andrew Heaney got just two outs in the shortest start of the 32-year-old left-hander’s big league career. After Corey Seager’s third-inning solo homer pulled Texas even, the Astros immediately scored four more, capped by José Abreu’s three-run homer in the fourth.
The Rangers won the first two in Houston and matched the Astros’ 7-0 start in the playoffs last year, when Houston won its second championship.
Now Texas is flirting with a fifth losing streak of at least three games since the All-Star break. It would match the number of winning streaks of at least six games in the same span.
“I always like my chances with this club,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “Nobody thought it was going to be easy. I’ve been in this kind of situation where we have to bounce back. And that’s what we need to do.”
The Rangers had a 20-game stretch in September when they lost four games in a row, won six, lost four and then won six more. That up-and-down stretch began with Houston sweeping Texas at Globe Life Field, hitting 16 homers while outscoring the Rangers 39-10.
It’s not the first time Texas has had the feeling of things slipping away.
The Rangers led the AL West all but one day into late August. But a loss on the final day of the regular season cost them the division title and sent them on a cross-country trek that triggered the postseason winning streak.
Now Texas has to find a way to end Houston’s dominance at the home of the Rangers.
“They’re capitalizing on mistakes,” Texas right-hander Dane Dunning said. “It’s plain and simple. That’s the Astros to a tee. They capitalize when we make mistakes. Our offense does the same thing.”
Texas played six of its first seven games on the road this postseason, winning twice in Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Houston.
The Rangers are 1-2 at home in these playoffs, and 10-18 in franchise history. That .357 winning percentage is the third-lowest for the postseason in major league history.
“Every single game is its own game,” second baseman Marcus Semien said. “Tomorrow we can wake up and turn the series around. This series is still ours to win because we’re at home behind our fans. We get out to a 3-2 lead tomorrow, it’ll be a nice flight to Houston.”
The Astros have never rallied from a 2-0 series deficit and will have Justin Verlander on the mound for the final game of the series in Arlington. It’s a rematch with Jordan Montgomery from Texas’ 2-0 win in Game 1.
Houston did erase a 2-0 deficit to Washington in the 2019 World Series by winning three in a row on the road before the Nationals won the championship in the only Fall Classic in which the road team won all seven games. Verlander was the Game 6 loser in Houston in that series.
“There’s a lot of things that you can look back on and use to your advantage and say, ‘OK, we’ve been there, let’s not panic,’” Verlander said. “It sounds easy, but it’s not as easy to pull off. I think that’s what makes this team so dangerous.”
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