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Premature tweet from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seems to jinx Astros

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott  might forever be known in Houston among Astros fans as The Jinx and it wasn't his fault.

An staffer posting to the Twitter account of his office (not his personal account) made the premature decision Monday to congratulate the Houston Astros advancing to the American League Championship Series.

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The tweet was posted at 4:02 p.m. (ET) during the seventh inning of Houston’s game in the ALDS against Kansas City. The Astros took a 6-2 lead in the inning and everyone on the Houston side had to be feeling pretty confident, including the governor and his staff.

Dean Hermon captured a screenshot of the tweet before it was deleted from the @GovAbbott account.



But Kansas City rallied in the top of the eighth to score five runs and take a 7-6 lead and went on to win 9-6. It was the largest comeback victory of the season for the Royals and it forced a return to Kansas City for Game 5 on Wednesday night. If the Astros lose that game, some of the more superstitious Houston fans will surely point to the Abbott goof as a dose of bad karma.

Oops.

John Wittman, Abbott's deputy press secretary, confirmed @GovAbbott is a staff-run account and the tweet was caused by staff error.

Give Abbott credit for handling it with a sense of humor and not dodging it. He used his personal twitter account to try to douse the flames a bit.

If you believe in jinxes, you can make the case that the tweet, which mentioned the Texas Rangers, also jinxed the Rangers who were early in their ALDS game against Toronto and ultimately fell behind 7-1 after three innings.

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Kyle Ringo is a contributing writer to Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at kyle.ringo@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo