Justin Verlander becomes latest victim of Nationals’ historic run.

Astros manger A.J. Hinch did not intentionally walk a batter all year, so when he finally ordered one–that’s how much Juan Soto scares Houston–it triggered a five-run rally in which nobody hit the ball hard.

“Nothing was hit over 85 miles an hour,” Verlander said.

“We’ll be fine”, Astros confident in World Series comeback.

“Clearly, the Nats have outplayed us, bottom line,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch. ”They came into our building and played two really good games. We’re going to have to try to sleep off the latter third of this game.

“They’re halfway to a race to four wins. Clearly, Game 3 becomes critical for us. I doubt the Nats are going to feel too confident that they have this sewed up and they can start planning the parade. We’re going to give them a fight for it.’’

Poll Will the Astros "be fine’’ ? This poll is closed. 32% No, put a fork in them. (13 votes)

37% Yes, they have the capability to comeback and win it all. (15 votes)

30% Bring in Wade Miley! (12 votes) 40 votes total Vote Now

There is no WS game today. Coverage will resume on Thursday 5 p.m. Greinke v TBD

Arizona D-backs: Giving players their final letter grades.

This call to the pen article lists Josh Rojas as an infielder and gives him a solid ‘C’. Did they hallucinate this? No surprise my main man Nick “Big Dccc” Ahmed was graded an ‘A+’ while nobody’s main man Jake Lamb was given a generous ‘D’ grade.

MLB team roundup: Arizona Diamondbacks, what went wrong, what went right.

No surprise here that Ketel Marte, Carson Kelly, and Christian Walker were all in the ‘‘went right” column. Jake Lamb, Steven Souza the JR, and David Peralta all landed in the “went wrong” category.

NY County declares October 22nd ‘Tim Locastro’ Day in honor of D-backs OF.

The Cayuga County Legislature just declared today Tim Locastro Day for Auburn's very own @Dbacks player and "the fastest man in baseball." pic.twitter.com/xCB1SxOTb8 — Ryan Franklin (@RyanNYFranklin) October 22, 2019

Around Baseball:

MLB looking into long-time umpire Rob Drake’s tweets.

Drake tweeted late Tuesday that he planned to buy an AR-15 rifle “because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020,” according to a copy of the tweet obtained by ESPN.

I hate the Drake!

Astros GM speaks for the 1st time on SI article controversy over exec’s comments on Osuna.

“You know, Brandon has apologized for inappropriate behavior and I think from my perspective clearly something happened that he regrets,” he said. “What we really don’t know is the intent behind the comments that he made — the inappropriate comments — and we may never know that because the person who said them and the people who heard them, at least up to this point, have very different perspectives.”

Off-topic Snake Byte:

New to Netflix: Rattlesnake