There's more to come, but Game 5 had all the drama you could script

By the end of it on Thursday night, after Chas McCormick had made one of the great game-saving catches in all of World Series history and Ryan Pressly had gotten the last out of his gutty five-out save and the Astros had won, 3-2, to go head of the Phillies, 3-2, it felt as if we’d had an amazing World Series all in one night in Philadelphia. And the Astros and Phillies, who had already given us so many memories before they even got to Game 5, aren’t done yet.

Over the past week, we have seen baseball at its very best, on the mound, at the plate and in the field. Now we see how the story ends as the World Series goes back to Minute Maid Park and the Astros try to win their second World Series in the past six seasons. Or perhaps the Phillies can go back to Houston and come back from being three games to two down and win it all the way the Nationals did against the Astros in 2019, when they were the ones up against it.

This all really started in Game 1, when the Phillies came back from being down, 5-0, to catch the Astros and finally beat them in extra innings. On Wednesday night, we got a combined no-hitter from four Astros pitchers, starting with Cristian Javier, who, right now, right this minute, is the best baseball pitcher in the world. This all happened the night after the Phillies had turned the second night of a baseball November into a mid-July Home Run Derby -- five home runs and all -- with the first coming from Bryce Harper, who hit the first pitch he ever saw in Philly during a World Series over the fence.

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Truly, we have had a little bit of everything, just in these first five games. Jose Altuve, the Astros’ little big man, twice has jump-started games for his team, first in Game 2 and again on Thursday night with a double in the top of the first. Altuve ended up at third because of an error by Brandon Marsh, the Phillies' center fielder. Then kid at short for the Astros, Jeremy Peña, as much of a star as his team has right now, knocked home Altuve and the Astros were on the board on a night when they were trying to finally get ahead of the Phillies in the ’22 Fall Classic.

Peña would hit a homer later. Justin Verlander, on a night when he would finally get himself a World Series victory, showed you not just his talent, but his baseball heart by pitching out of one jam after another once Kyle Schwarber had hit another postseason homer on the second pitch Verlander threw him in the first inning.

And all of that turned out to be the overture for the ending the Astros and Phillies gave us to Game 5, what turned out to be the fourth out of that five-out save for Pressly, who’d come into the game facing first-and-third, one out, trying to make a one-run lead stand up.

That ending was really provided by McCormick, out of West Chester, Pa., a kid who’d grown up at Citizens Bank Park and who, with one out in the bottom of the ninth and the Phillies trying to come back on the Astros again, truly did make a stirring, leaping catch against the scoreboard in right-center that will go with any catch any Series has ever seen -- all the way back to Willie Mays running with his back to home plate at the Polo Grounds in 1954.

McCormick got a tremendous jump on the ball J.T. Realmuto had hit, even if he seemed to be chasing it all the way from the Rocky statue in downtown Philly. Finally, and at full speed, he timed his leap perfectly, and at the height of his jump against that scoreboard, he made the backhanded catch of what would surely have been a one-out double and maybe a triple for Realmuto depending on where the ball bounced. An old baseball man named Fresco Thompson once said that Mays’ glove was where triples went to die. At least a double had died in McCormick’s glove at Citizens Bank Park.

“One of my better catches in one of the most important games of my life,” McCormick said later on television.

Then he said: “It felt like a dream.”

If the Astros can get one more win off the Phillies, McCormick’s catch, as much as anything that had already happened and will happen this weekend, will feel like the one play that did the most to win this World Series for his team.

So he sure had his World Series moment, with the game and maybe the Series on the line. Altuve had another one. So did Peña and a cancer survivor named Trey Mancini, who wasn’t supposed to get anywhere near nights like this when he was still with the Orioles. But he was where he was supposed to be (thanks to Astros bench coach Joe Espada) with two outs in the eighth, when Schwarber tried to pull a hard ground-ball shot down the line. Verlander had just enough of a night. Pressly, for now, had the night of his baseball life.

It was like that in Game 5 in Philly. A night to remember. A World Series to remember. Not over yet. Yeah.