That's Devastation!

As a man who has watched his team on the other end of a great many of these kinds of homers, I can say without a doubt that Albert Pujols's 3-run shot in the top of the 9th against the Astros last night is one of those moments that sucks your soul out and depresses you for days.

The HR by Pujols was so majestic, so immediately into baseball lore as soon as he hit it, so magnificently far that an Astros fan had no chance of catching it, that it had the characteristic of being a 3-game winning HR instead of a mere game-winning HR. When you are the Astros, and you have played your butts off for 9 innings, and you're one strike away from going to the World Series, and then Pujols hits that shot, your mind has to be going through some terrible scenarios. First of all, you're going back to St. Louis. Second, you have to play another 9 innings to win, which sounds like 27 innings. Your mind has to be going back to the ninth inning of the game you just lost, trying to figure out how you could have let that go, and now you have to fight another day.

Here's where emotions in sports matter the most. When you have a 4-2 lead after a dramatic homer late in the game gives you that lead, and you ride the rest of the game on the high of that, and you're sure you're going to take the next step, and your own ballpark gets the wind knocked out of them as the enemy circles the bases, scoring only one more run than you have been able to put up so far, that's hard to get out of your head. Your confidence is now blown. All of the players who were responsible for your worst moment are going to loom as giants when they come up to the plate. I can't get Eckstein out. I can't get Edmonds out. We might as well walk Pujols. Under the circumstances, you were better not to take a 3-1 lead in the series.

Ask the 1986 Angels, who were up 3-1 and had a 5-2 lead in Game 5 over the Red Sox in the ALCS, and when the Sox scored 2 runs and then Dave Henderson hit the 2-run HR to take the lead late, were unable to recover. The same year, the Buckner play in Game 6 of the World Series, although the Sox took the lead in Game 7 later but were unable to hold it. The Don Denkinger call in the 1985 World Series, where the Cardinals fell apart and lost Game 6 and then barely showed up for Game 7. I think Kirk Gibson's blast in 1988 against the Athletics damaged the A's the rest of that Series. Of course, you've got Jim Leyritz in 1996 where the Braves easily could have had a 3-1 lead in the World Series after taking a 6-0 lead in Game 4 and then give it up, and despite the Series only being tied, I felt as a fan it was over. I can't think of one time in the playoffs where some hugely damaging blow didn't deflate a team for the rest of the time. There's not enough time to get over it.

I still have the Astros winning this, but one win away seems harder than the Cards' two.