There’s plenty of history — both on-field and off — between the Red Sox and the Houston Astros, and it’s all about to come to a head as the teams face off in the American League Championship Series.
Naturally, Nathan Eovaldi has strong feelings toward his upcoming opponent.
“I don’t necessarily hate any team, but they’re not high up on my list,” Eovaldi said Wednesday in an appearance on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show.
Eovaldi’s opinion is rooted in a 2018 incident, though. As pointed out co-host Chris Curtis in the interview, when the Red Sox and Astros were preparing for that year’s ALCS, Astros third baseman Alex Bregman took to his Instagram story to share a video of Eovaldi allowing three consecutive home runs to Houston in a regular season meeting.
The now-Red Sox ace was with the Tampa Bay Rays at the time. He finished that brutal start allowing four solo home runs and seven hits, striking out five in a 5-1 loss for the Rays.
“It happened,” he said. “I gave up three homers back to back. We were able to come out on top that series and hopefully we’re going to be able to do it again this time.”
Of course, the Red Sox ended up winning the World Series in 2018.
It’s not yet clear when Eovaldi will start in the ALCS, as Red Sox manager Alex Cora hasn’t revealed who will get the ball for the first two games of the series.
Game 1 is in Houston on Friday night.
