That was Game Five: Adolis García at home, plunked and brawling over it. This was Game Six: García’s grand slam in Houston turning a tight Ranger lead into a blowout win.

Were the Elysian Fields demigods drunk Sunday night? Did Bryan Abreu appealing his two-game suspension, enabling him to pitch if called upon, absolutely have to mean he and Adolis García would square off again, in the top of the eighth, two nights after their confrontation turned into a bench-clearing brawl, three ejections, and the Astros taking a 3-2 American League Championship Series lead?

And did García just have to shake off his fourth swinging strikeout of the Game Six evening at Abreu’s hand only to turn a tight Ranger lead into a 9-2 blowout with a grand slam in the top of the ninth? Seriously?

Of course, to both. Because a) those demigods can rarely resist the opportunity for farce. And, b) because this is baseball, where (said before, saying again) anything can happen—and usually does.

The top of the ninth was absurd enough, with the Rangers loading the pillows on Astro reliever Rafael Montero with a leadoff walk (Josh Jung), a fielding error when José Altuve couldn’t handle Leodys Taveras’s high chopper charging in from second, and Marcus Semien setting García’s moveable feast table with a sharp base hit to left.

This is where you could see those Elysian demigods snickering behind their heavenly brewskis as Astros manager Dusty Baker brought Ryne Stanek in from the bullpen. Stanek got credit for the “win” when the Astros blew the Rangers out in Game Four, and now someone among the demigods had to have had the devil on the horn reminding him to collect his due.

First, Stanek hit Corey Seager with a pitch on 1-0 to send Jung strolling home with the fifth Rangers run. Then, Stanek had García at a 1-1 draw, before throwing him a fastball right atop the bull’s eye of the strike zone. It disappeared midway back into Minute Maid Park’s Crawford Boxes faster than any known American highway speed limit allows.

Thanks, Dev, you could hear the Elysians purring. Eff you, Ol’ Splitfoot, you could hear Astroworld fuming.

Two air outs to follow ended the inning but not García’s glory. On the night Abreu could pitch while appealing his two-game suspension for throwing at García in Game Five, García—who probably should have drawn a similar suspension for starting the brawl to follow when he got into Astro catcher Martín Maldonado’s grille over the driller—made himself the Rangers’ man of the hour.

Maybe even the entire ALCS, too. Even if Rangers starting pitcher Nathan Eovaldi could stake a claim with six and a thirds’ stout two-run, five hit pitching in which he struck out fourr and walked three. But Eovaldi, the solid defenders behind him, and the solid enough bullpen bulls to follow him, made you ponder whether they were merely toying with the Astros allowing a pair of runs on a first-inning RBI single (Yordan Alvarez) and a sixth-inning sacrifice fly (Mauricio Dubón).

Before García unloaded, he’d spent the night striking out swinging twice against Astro starter Framber Valdez, once against Astro reliever Phil Maton, and of course against Abreu. He looked so overmatched in those turns at the plate you could have forgiven him for wondering whether to carry a window, a door, or a great oak tree up to the plate his next time up.

Concurrently, Rangers designated hitter Mitch Garver enhanced one of his finest postseason nights—a game-tying solo bomb in the second; a two-out single telegraphing Josh Heim’s two-run homer in the fourth—by taking out late insurance for his team. After Abreu struck García out, Garver slashed a 3-1 slider on a high line to left that bounced once, ricocheted with a clang off the scoreboard wall, and enabled road-running mid-game Rangers left field insertion Evan Carter (leadoff infield hit; steal of second) to come home in the eighth with the fifth Rangers run.

The Minute Maid audience spent most of the evening booing lustily every time García checked in at the plate and cheering just as lustily every time he struck out. Then he sliced that ninth-inning salami. That was enough to quell the crowd’s appetite and send them starting to strike for the exits before the bottom of the ninth.

And, for Rangers reliever Andrew Heaney to throw four pitches for three ground outs to end the game. If you were an Astro fan still in the ballpark, those four pitches seemed like a mercy killing, no matter that the ALCS was now merely tied at three, but given this year’s Astros’ comparative weakness on the road including a 1-4 postseason record there so far.

Just don’t ask Astros left fielder Michael Brantley. “That doesn’t matter,” he said postgame. “It’s in the past. We need to turn the page and be ready for tomorrow.” They’ll need a lot more than page turning if precedent still matters—including the one saying that no team who lost more at home than on the road in the regular season has yet reached a World Series.

“It’s something you can’t explain,” Dubón said. “We could come tomorrow and win tomorrow and everybody would forget about it. It’s part of baseball. We win on the road. This year, we didn’t win at home and we have one more game to prove it.” Unfortunately, for this year’s Astros, that last remark could be taken two ways.

The Rangers probably couldn’t care less. They were a home powerhouse (.617 percentage) and just under .500 on the road during the season. Three of the four best road teams this year (the Braves, the Orioles, the Dodgers) were punted out of the postseason early.

The Astros, number four on the road overall, might be on the threshold of a postseason exit, but they’re still the Astros, and—in the phrasing of a one-time Astros coach—they’re not out of it until they’re out of it.

And the Rangers know it. Seriously.

Ask them why it’s been the visitors walking into the other guys’ houses and looting and plundering them, and Garver is stuck for an answer. “Seems a little odd nobody is winning at home,” he said postgame. “And I would like for it to stay that way.”

Stuck for an answer, too, is manager Bruce Bochy. “That’s the million dollar question,” said the man who managed the Giants to three World Series-winning games in five years on the road. Including the first of the lot—against a different collection of Rangers, in 2010. This group won’t take the Astros for granted no matter where they’re playing.

“I said it in August, it’s going to be a dogfight all the way to the end,” said Garver. “Really, really good ball club on both sides. They have pitching. They have hitting. But so do we. It’s one game to settle it all, and I think everyone is excited for that.”

Bochy is on record prominently as saying he doesn’t really like a lot of drama. Do you think Game Six changed his mind a little? He’d just been handed the Astros’ heads on a plate courtesy of one of the most dramatic late-game detonations in his team’s history.

“It’s been entertaining with me,” he said postgame. “It’s intense. There’s no getting around it. People ask you, ‘Are you having fun?’ Yeah, it’s fun, you try to enjoy it, but it’s intense out there. That’s what I came back for, to be in this situation. It’s exciting”

Seriously? What happened to the wish for little to no drama? Maybe Bochy knows that wish’s last stand disappeared the moment García’s salami did. Seriously.