Offense fails to lift team
Garcia struggles with command in sluggish start as Suarez stymies batters
Life arrived after eight inefficient innings and Houston’s heart and soul sauntered to the plate. Jose Altuve can make Minute Maid Park erupt with one swing. The bottom of Houston’s batting order broke through against Angels closer Raisel Iglesias, leaving the leadoff man to finish the job.
Iglesias could not find the strike zone. A walk to Jake Meyers preceded a runscoring double by backup catcher Garrett Stubbs. Altuve got ahead in the count 2-0. The two tying runs stood in scoring position.
Altuve could send them — and everyone else — home with one swing. He Iglesias fed him a diet of sliders. Altuve swung through one and fouled another. The count even and crowd near a frenzy, Iglesias served a sinker.
Altuve watched it fall in for strike three. He stranded five baserunners on this frustrating night, none bigger than this. Chas McCormick, pinch-hitting for an injured Michael Brantley, popped out on a hanging slider to end any hope of a rally and hand Houston a 4-2 loss.
A night after attacking the Angels for 16 hits and 10 runs, the Astros’ lineup looked listless for eight innings. It had four hits before the ninth-inning uprising. Crafty southpaw Jose Suarez scattered three across 52⁄3 innings. Yordan Alvarez collected two of them.
“He threw a good game,” manager Dusty Baker said. “He had thrown a good game before he got here in his last start. He was throwing 3-2 backdoor curveballs. He had his fastball command. It wasn’t a matter of us struggling, it was a matter of him having a quality start. He threw the ball well.”
Suarez stymied with a four-seam fastball that only averaged 92.8 mph. His curveball kept lefthanded hitters off balance. His changeup neutralized righties, forcing Astros starter Luis Garcia to be almost perfect. He was nothing near it.
Garcia surrendered four runs across five uninspiring frames. Luis Rengifo’s tworun home run off a 2-0 fastball during the fourth inning offered an apt illustration of Garcia’s evening. He threw with discernible rhythm and worked at a languid pace. The Angels lived ahead in the count and pounded him because of it. Garcia surrendered seven hits. Four of them came after falling behind either 2-0 or 2-1.
“He fell behind in a lot of counts, a lot of at-bats,” catcher Martín Maldonado
said. “The curveball wasn’t landed. The changeup was a little bit off. The cutter, a pitch that’s been really good for him, especially against righthanders, wasn’t in the strike zone as much. We had to lean fastball a lot and that’s when they did damage against us.”
Four of their seven hitters saw a 2-1 count. Garcia yielded consecutive singles to start the first. Leadoff man David Fletcher sent a 2-1 offering down the firstbase line. Shohei Ohtani obliterated a 1-1 fastball into right field. Garcia got ahead of cleanup man Jared Walsh, but mislocated the fastball afterward.
Walsh whacked it off the left-field wall. Fletcher scored from first base. Third-base coach Brian Butterfield opted not to send Ohtani on Carlos Correa’s cannon of a right arm, offering hope Garcia could strand him. Instead, he started 2-0 against Rengifo. Forced to throw a fastball, Garcia gave up a ground ball to the right side. Ohtani sauntered home without a throw, affording Suarez a two-run lead before he took the mound.
A second-inning walk to Alvarez only briefly stopped Suarez’s momentum. Yuli Gurriel’s double play ball brought it back. Suarez faced the minimum
through 31⁄3 innings. A strikeout of Altuve to start the fourth gave him three straight punchouts. A spark plug stepped to the plate behind him.
Jose Siri arrived by accident. Michael Brantley exited the game after three innings with a bothersome right knee, forcing the 26year-old rookie into his first meaningful action. Siri is here for his speed. His power can be prodigious, but he pairs it with far too many swings and misses.
The Astros raised Siri’s hands in his batting stance in hopes he can connect with more breaking balls and solve the problem. He swung through a 2-1 fastball from Suarez to even the count. Suarez tried a changeup to put him away. Siri spoiled it foul, beginning a battle few thought would manifest.
Siri fouled off two more two-strike pitches and took
another. He blooped Suarez’s ninth pitch at Jo Adell’s feet in right field. Siri mimicked a bow and arrow at first base to celebrate his first major league hit. The dugout called for and received the baseball.
Siri flashed a wide smile. He took an aggressive lead from first base while Alex Bregman batted. Suarez’s attention seemed focused on Siri. He threw over twice. A third time had Siri dead to rights. Speed compensates for some mistakes. Siri outran Walsh’s relay throw and stole second base before Bregman finished a nine-pitch walk.
“That’s why I put him in there in that situation,” Baker said. “We needed a spark at that time. He reminds me of, like, Cesar Cedeno. You’d have him thrown outt, and some kind of way he’d be safe. Certain guys play like that, and certain guys get away with stuff like that.”
Suarez threw 17 pitches between Siri and Bregman. His back seemed planted on the proverbial wall. The 34-5 of Houston’s lineup loomed. The crowd came to a crescendo. Three pitches silenced it. Alvarez struck a first-pitch single.
Gurriel grounded the second offering he saw to shortstop for a run-scoring fielder’s choice. Correa produced a carbon copy, grounding out on a firstpitch curveball, allowing Suarez to escape.