Whenever the the Houston Astros come to town to play the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium – regardless of the circumstances – the games are already at a Level-10 even before the first pitched is tossed. And even though only two players from that 2017 cheating Astros team remain on their current roster and former Dodger great Dusty Baker is now their manager, there is still zero love lost for them (and always will be) from Dodgers fans.

As such, and when the Astros quickly erased an early 3-1 Dodgers lead on a grand slam home run by Astros third baseman Alex Bregman (one of the aforementioned two) in the top of the fifth, and tagged on another run in the top of the sixth to make it 7-3 Houston, a good many of the 49,218 at The Ravine were very upset and very vocal.

Adding insult to injury, prior to Bregman’s slam. the other remaining cheating Astro, second baseman Jose Altuve, dropped down a bunt single to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman to set the table for Bregman.

“I don’t know,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts answered, when asked if there was a correlation between Altuve’s bunt and Bregman’s subsequent grand slam. “I do know that he was pretty rattled about that, you know, whether he says it or not. But I do think that there’s certain things that you still got to limit damage and continue to make good pitches. And, you know, you can see that inning where his tempo sped up. He just kind of forgot about secondary pitches and they were putting the ball in play, and you got to tip your hat to those guys in that situation.”

But prior to Altuve’s bunt and Bregman’s slam, Miller issued a walk to Astros center fielder Jake Meyers which, according to Miller himself, was what bothered him the most during that fifth and final inning for the Elk Grove Village, IL native and Dodgers first-round draft pick in 2020 out of the University of Louisville.

“I know there were a couple weak hits in there and a bunt, but the walk got me for sure,” Miller said postgame. “I can control that. I’m all about controlling what you can control. That’s the basics. I’ve got to get over to first earlier (on Altuve’s bunt). That and the walk definitely hurt.”

But for reasons only he knows, Roberts elected to stay with Miller, who promptly walked Astros right fielder Kyle Tucker and gave up a double to Astros first baseman Jose Abreu. He then gave up an RBI single to Astros catcher Yainer Diaz before Roberts finally (and mercifully) pulled him, bringing in Dodgers right-hander Yency Almonte, who brought an end to the bleeding without further damage, thanks to a strikeout (and a walk), followed by a huge inning-ending 4-3 double play.

But the never say die Dodgers made a game of it by adding two in their half of the seventh and tied it at 7-7 in the bottom of the eighth on a clutch two-run double by a suddenly (and finally) red hot Dodgers center fielder James Outman.

And then, with the game tied and runners on second and third, Astros right-hander Ryne Stanek , of all things, committed a balk to give the Dodgers the 8-7 lead and final score.

“It was a balk. He got it right,” Roberts told reporters of second base umpire Junior Valentine‘s balk call. “Obviously in a game like that, you don’t want that to be the deciding run in that situation, but they got the call right.”

As you would expect, Stanek went ballistic, as did Baker, leading to the ejection of both.

“How is that a balk?, “ Stanek yelled to Junior Valentine, leading to his early shower.

Whatever. ‘A balk is as good as a hit,’ as they say

…or something like that.

Play Ball!

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