Alex Bregman Shuts Up the Dodgers (Again), Shows Why He’s Irreplaceable — The Astros Just Aren’t the Astros Without Their Battler

Alex Bregman returns to the Houston Astros clubhouse drenched in sweat, his gray T-shirt soaked through. It’s more than 40 minutes since the game ended and Bregman is still putting in the work.

This is the scene the night before Bregman walks off the Dodgers (again), before he takes the second pitch Blake Treinen throws him and sends it rocketing above the Crawford Boxes, all the way up onto the train tracks, plunging another stake right into the heart of the Dodgers, can’t-let-it-go Clayton Kershaw and the forever yapping Joe Kelly. The night before it’s just Alex Bregman putting in some more extra work and returning to an almost completely deserted clubhouse.

“Once every blue moon I work out and it just happened to be today,” Bregman cracks to the two reporters waiting for him on walkoff eve.

Of course, Bregman is being self deprecating. Putting in extra work, searching for any little extra advantage he can give his Astros is what he’s been about since he first came onto the scene as a rookie in 2016, just as this Golden Age of Astros Baseball was about to take off. Eight seasons and two world championships later, as he approaches unrestricted free agency this offseason, the 30-year-0ld Bregman is as irreplaceable as ever.

While Jose Altuve remains the heart and soul of this near Astros dynasty, Alex Bregman is the savvy, steely, steady knowhow, the undislodgeable rock that so many lean on. Together, they make up one of the greatest baseball leadership duos of this era. Bregman’s value does not just come through when he hits the walkoff home run in the Astros’ biggest win of the season — a 7-6 stunning of the Dodgers after being down 5-0 in front of a deafening near playoff worthy crowd at Minute Maid on a Saturday night. A callback to one of the greatest moments in Astros’ history — and Bregman’s life — that walkoff single he hit to stun the Dodgers in that epic 13-12 World Series Game 5 in 2017.

It also apparent the night before in a play that drives the LA Dodgers crazy in another rematch of one of the condor rare rivalries in sports today that has real, legitimate loathing on both sides.

It came in the Astros 5-0 series opening win, with Houston’s strongman pitcher Framber Valdez wobbling for a moment, facing traffic on the bases. In the heat of a play that’s as congested as Times Square at 7 pm on a Friday night, Bregman somehow notices that Dodgers veteran Kike Hernandez overran second base and never touched it. Something even the four umpires miss. Bregman sees it though and he tags Hernandez for an inning-ending out that prevents Shohei Ohtani from coming up with a chance to do some real damage.

“It’s just for the long haul. For the longevity of your career. So try and work out. Keeps me young.” — Alex Bregman on a postgame workout

It takes a successful replay review to confirm what Alex Bregman picked up in real time, with the chaos of a rave around him. One of the headiest baseball plays of the year, it personifies what Bregman brings to these Astros. It’s missed or ignored by many, After all, it’s not a home run (though Bregman hits one of those too in the series opener). It’s not a spectacular athletic feet. Or a bloodied dive into the stands to chase a foul ball.

It’s just as heady as heady gets, a flex of awareness and thinking on your feet.

“That was a good heads up play,” Astros manager Joe Espada says. “. . . That was a big play, that would have brought Ohtani to the plate as the potential tying run.”

Instead, Bregman erases the chance and Ohtani never steps to the plate.

For his part, the third baseman largely shrugs it off. To Bregman, he’s just playing baseball. You’re supposed to be paying attention.

“I was going to flip the ball to second base, but it was kind of one of those in-between balls that Jeremy (Peña) and I both go after,” he says. “So I looked at second and no one was there, and then I looked at first and no one was there. But I think when I looked at first and I was about to throw it, (Kike) saw me about to throw it so naturally you are going to look to third and have a good hard turn.

“I just got fortunate there.”

Bregman is being modest. It’s his way. He gets excited when he crushes that Treinen slider though. Bregman screams something right after connecting, as the Astros’ sold-out stadium erupts in joy and his teammates come flooding out of the dugout in a happy torrent to wait for him at home plate.

When the Astros need a final push, Alex Bregman gives it to them. Again.

“Everyone went crazy,” Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña says when I ask him about the walkoff party. “As soon as Breggy made contact, we knew it was gone. We knew the game was over. And like I said, it was huge comeback win. And that was a really great way to end the night.”

This season should not be the end of Alex Bregman’s run with the Astros. Astros owner Jim Crane and general manager Dana Brown need to figure out a way to keep him, to recognize that what Bregman does for the culture of baseball’s most consistent franchise of excellence — Major League Baseball’s only two time champion in the last decade — cannot be replaced.

Bregman isn’t a perfect player. He can struggle against his swing at times, he didn’t hit well during the 2021 World Series. But he’s driven to win, driven to make himself better every day, driven to help his teammates improve however he can. You might not get the Bregman who finished a close second to Mike Trout in the 2019 American League MVP race again. A second 41 home run season isn’t likely to be in the cards as Bregman moves into his thirties.

But there is not another third baseman like him, not another leader that could be slide into this clubhouse and keep the winning rolling along. This Astros culture withstood the loss of Carlos Correa and George Springer. But losing Alex Bregman would be a step too far.

No matter what the metrics say about signing a 30-year-old to another deal.

“Everyone went crazy. As soon as Breggy made contact, we knew it was gone. We knew the game was over. And like I said, it was huge comeback win.” — Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña

Overcoming Ohtani With a Breggy Bomb and Alex Smarts

On a Saturday night in which Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani hits a ball to the winding stairs above the top of Minute Maid’s second deck, Bregman hits the dinger that matters most. And he makes an extreme hustle sliding catch in foul territory to grab another important out. Another heads up play in which he needs to react without hesitating and immediately identify the opportunity,

Two nights, two game steadying defensive plays, two home runs. In two monumental wins.

You do not need to see the clips of pouty face Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly barking at the Astros from the safety of his dugout on this Saturday night to know emotional these Dodgers-Astros games still are. You don’t have to hear the Dodgers fans start up a rather loud “Let’s Go Dodgers!” chant in Houston only to be drowned out by Astros fans rallying to scream back “Let’s Go Astros!” more than once. You don’t have to see Bregman’s teammates (Yainer Diaz, Peña, Jake Meyers and Victor Caratini) rip off four straight two-out hits in the bottom of the sixth inning to take that rally from down 5-0 into overdrive. No wonder why Rockets forward Jabari Smith Jr. wanted to be there, sitting in Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta’s front row seats.

Alex Bregman is built for these type of games. These type of pressurized moments where both all the little things — and one big swing — mean so much more. He works and works to make sure of it.

“It’s just for the long haul,” Bregman tells PaperCity of working out after games, something a number of his teammates do too. “For the longevity of your career. So try and work out. Keeps me young.”

Bregman flashes a smile. He knows he’s not close to done. He’s going to be impacting baseball games as the highest level for a long, long time. Long enough for his nearly 2-year-old son Knox to hear some fans call Bregman old and see daddy prove them wrong. That’s the Bregman way. He’d better not be done as an Astro after this season either.