Astros can't solve home issues as Rangers force Game 7

HOUSTON -- The Astros and Rangers battled for the American League West crown for 162 games and both finished with 90 wins, with Houston taking the division flag on the season’s final day because of its better head-to-head record.

After six games of the ALCS, the Lone Star State rivals are deadlocked once again -- with one game remaining to decide a berth in the World Series.

The Rangers got homers from Mitch Garver, Jonah Heim and Adolis García and rode 6 1/3 strong innings from starter Nathan Eovaldi to beat the Astros, 9-2, in Game 6 of the ALCS on Sunday night at Minute Maid Park, tying the series at three games apiece.

The home team has lost each game in the series, a trend the Astros will need to reverse in Game 7 on Monday -- the biggest baseball game in the state’s history -- to advance to the World Series for the fourth time in five years and third year in a row. The Astros will send Cristian Javier to the mound in the winner-take-all game.

The only other time the home team lost every game in a seven-game series was the 2019 World Series, in which the Astros dropped four at Minute Maid Park to the Nationals, including Games 6 and 7. The Astros have lost 21 of their last 28 games at home.

In all best-of-seven postseason series, teams that have won Game 6 to force a Game 7 have come out on top in that winner-take-all contest 33 of 59 times (56 percent). As for Game 7, teams playing in their home ballparks are only 62-63 all-time in winner-take-all postseason games, including 30-27 in best-of-seven series.

Astros starter Framber Valdez, who had a 9.92 ERA in his previous four starts, allowed three runs in five innings on two swings of the bat. Garver hit a solo homer to right field in the second, and Heim barely cleared the right-field wall in the fourth for a two-run homer that put Texas ahead, 3-1.

Jose Altuve singled and scored on a Yordan Alvarez RBI single against Eovaldi in the first inning, and the Astros didn’t manage another hit until Alvarez led off the sixth with a single. He wound up scoring on a Mauricio Dubón sac fly to right. The Rangers added an insurance run off reliever Bryan Abreu in the eighth inning.

Minute Maid Park was rocking in the bottom of the eighth when the Astros loaded the bases with one out. Rangers reliever José Leclerc, who gave up Altuve’s ninth-inning go-ahead homer in Game 5, got Dubón to line out and struck out pinch-hitter Jon Singleton to silence the crowd. García then capped a five-run ninth for the Rangers with a grand slam. The Astros were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine runners.