After victory, getaway day has a whole new meaning
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Taking the helm after a first-inning ejection of manager A.J. Hinch, Astros bench coach Alex Cora leveraged his bullpen Thursday as if it were a playoff game.
Considering the circumstances, the Astros probably needed their 5-1 win over the Texas Rangers at Tropicana Field as badly as they’ve needed one in a while.
And afterward, they finally got to go home.
“We cannot wait,” Alex Bregman said. “Everybody in here is so ready to get back, get home, see their families, see the people, and see what we can do to help.”
After being displaced by Tropical Storm Harvey for three games at a neutral site against their intrastate rivals, the Astros on Friday will get their first chance to volunteer to help the many in need in their flood-ravaged city. They will seek to provide a distraction for a community in need of one with three games over two days against the Mets at Minute Maid Park before another road trip.
Avoiding the sweep
But before their muchanticipated homecoming, their goal Thursday was to salvage the final game of a series in which they lost the first two games 12-2 and 8-1. They accomplished it behind nine hits, a solidwhile-short start by Collin McHugh, and 41⁄3 no-hit innings of relief from Chris Devenski and Ken Giles.
“It’s just huge to go home with something positive,” Giles said. “That’s all we were looking for. That was the goal today. We’ve got to do something for the fans. Their spirits are low, so anything to bring up their spirits we’re going to try to do this coming weekend.”
The win pushed the Astros to 80-53 and closed the worst of their five months, an 11-17 August.
Cora managed the final eight innings after Hinch was ejected by second-base umpire and crew chief Joe West for arguing a call in the bottom of the first. Showing off his managerial chops, Cora used Devenski in the fifth to get Adrian Beltre with runners on second and third and kept him in for two more innings. He later deployed Giles, the team’s closer, for a two-inning save.
“He did great,” Hinch said of Cora, whom the Astros declined to make available for a postgame interview, citing a team policy. “I joked with him (that) as soon he took the reins, guys were running. J.D. Davis got his first stolen base of his career, Juan Centeno a hitand-run. I have complete trust and faith in him, and our group responded with a nice win.”
Hinch’s ejection was his first of the year. It came just before Jose Altuve tied the score at 1 with a home run, his 21st of the season. Hinch appeared animated but civil in arguing with plate umpire Chris Segal before West injected himself into the argument and ejected Hinch.
The manager contested a double play called against the Astros on a strikeout after which Bregman was ruled as having obstructed Rangers catcher Brett Nicholas’ throw to try to catch a stealing George Springer. There was no contact on the obstruction, argued the former major league catcher.
A rare ejection
“It’s pretty rare … to get thrown out by a guy who wasn’t even in the argument,” Hinch said. “I understand he’s protecting the younger umpire, but there was really no business for Joe to be involved in the argument.”
Hinch said he didn’t think he would have been ejected if it were up to Segal.
“I know the rule. I lived it,” Hinch said. “I understand why (Segal) made the judgment. It’s hard to argue a guy’s judgment. He called what he thought he saw, and it’s his call to make. It’s also my job to disagree and defend our team. And apparently, it was Joe’s job to come in and end the day (for me).”
The sequence wasn’t the only drama. In the fourth inning, former Astro and Lone Star Series lightning rod Carlos Gomez flipped his bat after walking against McHugh. McHugh had hit Gomez on the hip with a first-pitch sinker in the second inning, after which Gomez stared at the pitcher on his way to first base.
Sinker gets away
“The game plan for the whole year has been gotta get him in, gotta get him in,” McHugh said, referring to pitching inside. “My sinker was running a lot today.”
McHugh allowed an unearned run in his 42⁄3 innings but ran up a pitch count of 91 before he was lifted. Devenski (7-3) faced the minimum seven batters, erasing a seventh-inning walk of Drew Robinson by picking him off first base.
Giles worked around a walk in a 15-pitch eighth and, behind great defense from Bregman at short and Marwin Gonzalez at first, retired the side in order in a 16-pitch ninth.
The Astros broke open the game with a three-run eighth. Two scored on a two-out single by Derek Fisher off Alex Claudio.
“I think it means a lot to us as a club,” McHugh said of the win. “It means a lot to the organization. “It’s been a tough week for a lot of people. We’ve been displaced here. Obviously, we’re really fortunate in so many ways to be able to escape the devastation that’s actually happening in Houston. But we’ve been away for a while, and we’re just all ready to get back home.”
jake.kaplan@chron.com twitter.com/jakemkaplan