HOUSTON - The old saying goes, “It is not how you start, but how you finish.”

No other words could be more valid after what happened in front of the sellout crowd of 41,125 at Minute Maid Park on Tuesday in Game 1 of the American League Division Series between the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners.

The two teams have mutual respect, but an underline competitive spirit causes each team to have some not-so-friendly sentiments toward each other.

Houston rallied back from a four-run deficit to defeat Seattle by a score of 8-7, but it wasn’t the comeback that took the fight out of the Mariners; it was how the game ended.

Better yet, it was who ended the game.

With Seattle clinging to a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth inning, rookies David Hensley and Jeremy Peña made their way onto the base with two outs after Hensley was hit with a pitch and Peña hitting a single after being down to his last strike.

That is when the crowd waving their orange postseason towels to help give the Astros hitters some motivation got so loud that they probably could be heard from downtown Houston to the city of Sugarland, Texas, which is about 25 miles away.

The pure adrenaline rush from the fans was from the fact that they had been watching the polarizing figure in the Astros on deck circle taking practice swings, waiting for his opportunity to win or tie the game.

With his usual stoic demeanor that puts fear into opposing pitchers, Yordan Alvarez waited patiently as the Mariners called upon the 2021 A.L. Cy Young Award winner, Robbie Ray, from the bullpen to face him.

After Ray took his warmup pitches, Alvarez approached the plate with the fans cheering him on in a thunderous fashion. He proceeded to foul off the sinker thrown by Ray as he was a second slow getting around on the pitch.

As he repositioned himself in the batter’s box, it seemed as if the decibel level in Minute Maid Park had reached the max with how loud it had gotten as he awaited the next pitch.

The left-handed pitcher threw the same pitch in the same spot, except this time, the results were different as Alvarez sent the pitch 438 feet into the upper deck of right field to win the game and give the Astros a 1-0 lead in the series.

“As soon as I saw him (Ray) warming up I knew he was going to come into the game if they came down to me,” Alvarez said postgame through a translator. “As soon as I seen that I grabbed the Ipad to look at our previous encounters.”

Seattle manager Scott Servais had talked with Ray about using him in this high-leverage situation, if necessary, but he did not expect that outcome.

“I talked to Robbie about using him out of the bullpen, for that type of scenario,” Servais said after the game. “We looked at it in the seventh inning and said, ‘Hey, this could happen.’ At the end of the day that was the plan, and you have to execute it. I have to give him (Alvarez) credit and tip my hat to him because it is not easy to walk up there and do what he did today. He is one of the best hitters in the league and he showed it today.”

Alvarez’s home run was the first walk-off home run in postseason history for a team trailing by multiple runs. It also put him in the conversation with one of the most iconic baseball memories of all time as he became the second player in MLB postseason history to hit a walk-off home run with the team down to its final out. Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Kirk Gibson did it in the 1988 World Series.

“It was a very special moment,” said Alvarez, who finished the game going 3-for-5 at the plate with five RBI. “When I hit the ball and saw the ball go, I could feel all the fans getting super loud and excited. I think it was one of the most special moments in my career.”

The Astros will have a day off and resume playing on Thursday as Game 2 of the ALDS will take place at Minute Maid Park. The first pitch is at 2:37 p.m. CST.