HOUSTON — The Houston Astros jumped on the Atlanta Braves and starter Max Fried early, cruising to a 7-2 victory in Game 2 of the World Series.
With the series tied at 1-1, the World Series shifts to Atlanta for games 3, 4 and 5 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
The Braves have won 10 of their last 11 games at home, including all five of their games in the postseason.
“Obviously, you want to win two. But if you get out of here with a split, then that’s a good thing going home,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
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Fried made it through five innings pitched and eventually retired 10 batters in a row toward the end of his appearance. But the lefty gave gave up seven hits and five earned runs.
“Obviously, I’m not happy about it. Playoffs is a big momentum game. You got to do everything you can to keep the crooked number off the scoreboard,” Fried said.
The Astros also took advantage of rare errors by the Braves infield this postseason. Atlanta had no errors in the NLDS and only one error in the NLCS. They now have three so far in the World Series.
“You know what, it happens. Over the course of 162 games that we just played and how good our guys are defensively, it doesn’t bother me one bit,” Snitker said.
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José Altuve started the scoring for the Astros in the first. Altuve doubled to left, got to third on a fly ball by Michael Brantley and scored on a sacrifice fly by Alex Bregman.
Catcher Travis d’Arnaud tied the game up in the top of the second, hitting his first home run of the season. But the bottom half of the inning proved to be the Braves’ downfall.
Kyle Tucker, Yuli Gurriel, rookie José Siri and Martin Maldonado all had singles. Siri drove in the first run with an infield hit and Maldonado got an RBI on his hit to left, with Siri then scoring the second run on that play after left fielder Eddie Rosario threw toward an unoccupied third base for an error.
The Astros led 5-1 at that point. Freddie Freeman’s single that scored d’Arnaud accounted for Atlanta’s other run of the night. Houston tacked on two more runs on an error in the sixth inning and Altuve home run in the seventh.
[World Series schedule: Here’s when the Atlanta Braves will play Houston Astros]
The World Series shifts to Atlanta for Game 3 Friday night. Ian Anderson is scheduled to pitch against rookie Luis Garcia.
Anderson allowed one run in four innings in his NLCS Game 6 appearance that helped clinch Atlanta’s first National League pennant.
As for the Braves bullpen, Atlanta’s biggest relievers -- Tyler Matzek, AJ Minter, Luke Jackson and Will Smith -- rested Wednesday night.
Snitker turned to Dylan Lee, Jesse Chavez and Drew Smyly. Kyle Wright was the final pitcher of the night and struck out three batters he faced.
“I think it was so encouraging to see Kyle tonight, just getting in there for that one inning and getting him out there and experiencing this atmosphere because he could play a huge part going forward. I thought he threw the ball extremely well,” Snitker said.
Game 3 is scheduled for 8:09 p.m. Friday at Truist Park.
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