Houston Astros: Why Yasiel Puig just put undue pressure on the Dodgers

The Houston Astros are one win away from the World Series and the battle will move to Los Angeles for completion but it’s what Yasiel Puig said that has become a lightning rod for a reaction.

From a historical standpoint for not only the Houston Astros but in general, it doesn’t get better than this World Series match up. The immense amount of home runs — well up over the 20s for both teams — is certainly a record for the ballyhooed event. Each night, you never know who’s going to get hot and as of late, it has been both teams.

Last night’s game was certainly a nail-biter with each team going back-and-forth as if they were headlining a tango exposition with each partner juxtaposing their positions. For game lasted five hours and 17 minutes, it was every bit of an action-packed thriller that you could think of and there was no Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger to be found. With light humor aside, we have gotten everything we could handle this series in terms of entertainment — as well as us all checking with our doctors about our health after watching these games.

But you obviously know the Houston Astros are for real with Alex Bregman getting a clutch hit off Kenley Jansen in the bottom of the 10th for sending a speedy Derek Fisher — who pinched-ran for McCann — home to get the team sniffing at a possible series win.

But what was the most alarming was the Yasiel Puig comments after last night’s game:

Yasiel Puig: “This is not going to be finished Tuesday. There is going to be a Game 7.”
— Andy McCullough (@ByMcCullough) October 30, 2017

Puig just put undue pressure on himself as well as the rest of the team for making those comments. One thing about this Houston Astros team is that they don’t take to being provoked quite easily. They may light up the scoreboard just in spite of Puig comments. Although the hitting has been up-and-down this series for our team, this gives our team EXTRA motivation to close the deal.

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I certainly hope that the Astros make Puig eat his words and make him regret the sheer brashness of them to begin with. I don’t think a veteran would make a comment like that but Puig has been reigned in on maturity issues for quite some time now and even got benched during the season because of it.

But the guy has been batting .300 with 10 ribbies, three homers with a .935 OPS through the postseason so far so he has certainly done his job.

But in retrospect — if the Los Angeles Dodgers want to do that themselves, they can. The pressure is all on the Dodgers now because the Astros now have the momentum and they certainly have proven that they can win a game in LA, despite the grit that it would take.

Next: Astros: THREE Reasons why it was the World Series or bust

The heat wave is finally over in the LA basin so they’ll be experiencing more favorable conditions to play some ball. This may help or hurt the Astros chances but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter because one has to seize each and every opportunity to succeed. It’s damn sure possible that these guys can do it.

Will it happen? We’ll have to see but you better believe I’ll be watching starting at 7 p.m. CDT on FOX!

Go Astros!

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