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Nick Cafardo | On baseball

This is where the ALCS is going to get interesting

Nathan Eovaldi had the Red Sox pumped with his performance in Game 3 of the ALDS in New York. Jim Davis/Globe Staff

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HOUSTON — The two teams have beaten each other’s elite pitchers — the Astros beat Chris Sale and the Red Sox beat Gerrit Cole — so now it’s down to the third and fourth starters. Whose will be better? Whose will do the better job of keeping his team in the game?

This is where it gets interesting as the ALCS moves to Minute Maid Park for the next three games starting Tuesday afternoon (first pitch, 5:09 p.m.).

The Astros will start Dallas Keuchel, while the Red Sox will go with Nathan Eovaldi in Game 3, and we saw what Eovaldi did in Game 3 vs. the Yankees in that amazing 16-1 win. Eovaldi gave Alex Cora seven full innings of excellent work. Imagine a starter lasting seven innings and pitching lights-out in a postseason game?

Now the trick is for Eovaldi to repeat that against the Astros. You see, Eovaldi’s DNA is opposite that of David Price’s. Eovaldi loves pitching against the Yankees and now he must love pitching against the Astros, his hometown team.

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Eovaldi grew up in Alvin, a Houston suburb. If that town sounds familiar, it’s where Nolan Ryan is from. And there are times Eovaldi’s velocity gets up there in Ryan Express territory.

“Yeah, it definitely is very special to me,” said Eovaldi about pitching near his hometown. “Growing up we watched a lot of baseball games here, and then travel ball and stuff we got to play a couple times. It’s real special to me.”

Eovaldi said he got to meet Ryan a few years back when he played for the Yankees.

“Words can’t really describe what it’s like,” said Eovaldi. “But he’s done a lot for us and in the community of Alvin. I mean, it’s hard shoes to fill, but it’s definitely special to me.”

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Eovaldi said he’s a “completely different pitcher” from the one who faced the Astros back on June 20 when he gave up four solo homers while pitching six innings. Alex Bregman posted a video of himself homering off Eovaldi, which appeared to be a shot at Eovaldi and kind of a cocky move by Bregman. Eovaldi said he throws a lot more cutters now than he did early on.

“I definitely feel it’s gotten the hitters off my fastball and then it’s allowed me to get some earlier contact and go deeper into the games and not have to be so perfect with my fastball,” Eovaldi said. “And I’m able to mix in other pitches along with that and kind of go from there.

“I feel like if I go out there and do my job, attack the zone, get that first-pitch strike, not give up any free bases, no walks, things like that, I feel like that will keep the crowd out of it a little bit.

“But I know they’re going to be loud here and I feel like with the roof closed and stuff it gets even louder.”

Keuchel, the 2015 American League Cy Young winner, is not a hard thrower but a crafty lefty who has had mixed results against the Red Sox.

The Red Sox touched him up for five runs over six innings back on Sept. 9, including a three-run homer by J.D. Martinez. But if Keuchel gets into a rhythm, forget it, the Sox won’t touch him, which is why hitters have to disrupt him and make him feel uncomfortable from the first inning.

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Keuchel beat the Sox in last year’s ALDS with a strong 5⅔ innings (three hits, seven strikeouts). The Astros have won six of his eight postseason starts.

Keuchel is probably the anti-Eovaldi in terms of velocity. Eovaldi can throw up to 102 miles per hour, and Keuchel?

“That’s a good question,” he said. “I think I’m throwing harder this year than I’ve thrown in a while. So I don’t know, maybe 93.”

And after Eovaldi-Keuchel, we’ll likely get Charlie Morton vs. Rick Porcello in Game 4.

What I’ve liked about Porcello is that he looks so confident, with a killer instinct on the mound. He’s shown that not only in two eighth-inning relief appearances this postseason, but in his five-inning starting stint in Game 4, the ALDS clincher at Yankee Stadium. If it wasn’t for losing a bit of that mojo in the fifth inning and allowing a run, I’m convinced Porcello could have gone seven outstanding innings in that outing.

Porcello has a bit of Derek Lowe in him in that he has a rubber arm and is capable of making these occasional drop-ins in the bullpen. Given Boston’s bullpen status, that’s been a good thing, and given how shaky Craig Kimbrel has been, some have credibly wondered whether Porcello should close games.

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Morton, a Connecticut native, is a hard thrower who at age 34 has found himself as one of the better righthanded starters in the league (15-3, 3.13 ERA). Morton, like Eovaldi, will be one of the coveted pitchers in the free agent market, so there’s lots of incentive. This is where the big money is made.

Red Sox hitters also need to be aggressive against Morton and get him into hitter’s counts so they can tee off on his fastball. Morton, who did not get to pitch in the ALDS against Cleveland because the Astros swept the Indians in three games, was a Cora favorite in his year as the Astros bench coach and once said, “He’s got the best stuff of anyone on our pitching staff.”

Morton was effective in the World Series last season, winning Game 7 by closing out the Dodgers with four innings of two-hit relief.

The elites — Sale, Cole, Justin Verlander, and David Price — will again be in play, but the series will have changed greatly by then, depending on the Nos. 3 and 4 starters.


Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickcafardo.