Put to the ground.

Minutes after Texas lit Astros reliever Ken Giles up in the bottom of the ninth inning on Monday, in the first of four between the teams this week in Arlington, the 5.76 ERA/.812 OPS-toting righty said to the press, with air of odd and severely misplaced indignation: “We’re going to go out there tomorrow and put them to the ground.”

Put them to the ground.

The syntax confused me.

Was this like “lit” or “ratchet” or “turnt” or another one of those words or phrases I have to annoy my high school kid by asking her for an explanation?

Was it Papiamentu?

Was it Giles communicating on a level that the rest of us can’t process, you know, like a dog whistle?

The Rangers won the day after that, the “tomorrow” Giles was alluding to, 4-3. Like Monday, Texas came from behind to do it.

Was Giles prophetic? Did Houston dropping Game Two satisfy his prediction that his team was going “put the Rangers to the ground”?

The Astros won Game Three, using four relief pitchers that weren’t Giles.

I still wasn’t sure if he was proven right.

Then, yesterday, it hit me.

The Astros had taken a lead — like they did in all four games in the series — but Texas cut it to 2-1 in the third when Mitch Moreland followed an Elvis Andrus walk by doubling Andrus in. Bryan Holaday then singled Moreland to third.

Up stepped Jurickson Profar, who was getting a late start on his standard multi-hit game after he’d grounded out in the first frame.

Profar took ball one from Colin McHugh.

Holaday, unsurprisingly, was not on the move. The double play was in order, and the Astros were playing for two up the middle, prepared to concede the tying run.

Next McHugh pitch: Profar squared up and put a ball on the ground, right at Jose Altuve, who didn’t need to move a foot to the left or a foot to the right.

But he did leave his feet.

The shot cannon-balled Altuve backwards. The baseball met Altuve’s glove and then jumped out of it. Altuve landed on his butt, the ball landed on the ground, Moreland crossed home plate, Holaday advanced to second, Profar safely reached first.

Ian Desmond then struck out swinging for the second time in three innings, which theoretically would have ended the inning had Altuve turned the tailor-made double play, but instead the inning lived and Nomar Mazara singled to left to give Texas a 3-2 lead that would stand up and result in another series win, the Rangers’ 10th straight at home, a franchise record.

And now I know, even if it wasn’t “tomorrow,” what the prescient, forward-thinking visionary Ken Giles meant by “We’re going to go out there and put them to the ground.”