Altuve, Correa lead Astros’ rally
Not even six innings were complete before the animosity between the Astros and Rangers manifested itself on the field Monday night at Minute Maid Park.
Both benches and bullpens emptied in the first of 19 meetings between the intrastate rivals this season. No punches were thrown, but the on-field fracas in the middle of a 6-2 Astros win set the tone for yet another tension-filled Lone Star Series.
Ultimately, a five-run seventh inning by the Astros (17-9) proved the difference in the game. Yet it was the benches-clearing scrum that will serve as the backdrop for the final three games of this four-game set.
A first-pitch fastball that Astros starter Lance McCullers threw behind Rangers first baseman
Mike Napoli was the impetus for the sixth-inning fireworks. With two outs and the bases clear, McCullers’ pitch was a clear response to two Astros batters being hit earlier by the Rangers’ Andrew Cashner. Napoli had also taken McCullers deep in his previous at-bat, a fourth-inning solo shot to center field that broke a 1-1 tie.
As players gathered by the mound, Astros outfielder George Springer made sure McCullers stayed on the periphery. Ex-Astro Carlos Gomez, booed by the home crowd at every turn Monday, was held back by Rangers teammates. Shin-Soo Choo and Brian McCann were among those at the middle of it. Carlos Beltran, who played for the Rangers the second half of last season, appeared to play peacemaker.
Offense comes alive
The commotion soon subsided, and McCullers’ battle with Napoli continued after home-plate umpire Gerry Davis issued warnings to both sides. After McCullers struck out Napoli on a curveball to end the frame, the 23-yearold righthander flashed a couple glances the veteran slugger’s way en route to the dugout.
“I was just trying to go in hard,” McCullers said. “I threw in all game, whether they were lefties or righties. I came in a lot. A lot on
Gomez. A lot on Choo. I threw Napoli a heater on the outer half earlier in the game, and he hit it out. So Mac and I just kind of said, ‘Hey, we’re going to try and go in for effect, for a strike, open up that outer half part of the plate.’ Because in the first at-bat, he got a hit to left field again on a ball kind of on the outer half. So I was just trying to go in. It got away. He took some exception to it, and it is what it is. (We) moved on. A great team win.”
The win occurred because in the seventh, the Astros exploded for five runs against the combination of Cashner and reliever Tony Barnette. Altuve broke a 2-2 tie with a runscoring double just inside the third-base line. Carlos Correa, who had managed only three hits in his first 29 at-bats with runners in scoring position this season, broke open the game with a two-run double.
Yuli Gurriel made it 6-2 with a double off Dario Alvarez. The Astros batted around in the inning after managing only two hits, both singles, through six against Cashner.
McCullers allowed only two runs in 61⁄3 innings. He struck out 10, nine on his power curveball. Chris Devenski handled each of the five batters he faced in relief. When Michael Feliz labored in the ninth, Astros manager A.J. Hinch summoned closer Ken Giles to finish it off.
The win was just the Astros’ seventh in their past 30 games against the Rangers dating to August 2015. The lopsided nature of this series has been welldocumented. After storming back to win the division in 2015, the Rangers took 15 of the teams’ 19 meetings last season.
Bulletin board material
The season series began later than usual this season, but even pregame Monday didn’t lack for intrigue. In the visitors’ clubhouse, someone had pinned up on a white board an enlarged photo of a tweet written by Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, who on Sunday had posted “Opperation #BTSOOTR.”
Spelling error aside, the Rangers had their first bulletin board material of the season. It didn’t take a code-breaker to decrypt the hashtag.
“I made a rookie mistake,” Bregman said. “I shouldn’t have tweeted that out.”
Texas’ advertising of the tweet recalled their posting last June of a quote by the Astros’ Giles, who famously declared his then-thirdplace team as having more talent than the first-place team it couldn’t beat.
This season, Giles would have a much better case. The Astros came into Monday as the only AL West team better than one game over .500. The Rangers have strung together three consecutive wins only once, when they completed a four-game sweep of the hapless Kansas City Royals.
Monday’s result put the Astros six games ahead of the Rangers in the standings through 26 games.