ASTROS: Newcomer, familiar face help sweep aside Mets
Correa’s return, Maybin’s HR help extend win streak to 4
Outside Minute Maid Park on Sunday afternoon, highways hummed, brunch spots bustled, and skies cleared.
Inside the ballpark, Carlos Correa started at shortstop, hit cleanup and minced toward the batter’s box for his first plate appearance since tearing a ligament in his left thumb July 17.
The crowd, which filled to 32,065, gave him a standing ovation that overwhelmed the salsa walk-up music.
Include Correa among the signs Houston is regaining its strength after being havocked by Tropical Storm Harvey.
Correa went 1-for-3 with a run-scoring single in the Astros’ 36th comeback win, an 8-6 victory over the Mets. It gave the Astros their first four-game winning streak since July 1-5.
Down 4-1 entering the bottom of the third inning, MLB’s best offense stormed the Mets with five runs. The Astros re-
took the lead on a threerun homer by newly acquired outfielder Cameron Maybin.
George Springer hit his 31st home run, a 433-foot blast to the train tracks in the fourth, and Josh Reddick drove in three runs. Jose Altuve stole two bases, giving him six consecutive seasons with 30 or more.
The Astros’ bats had to prevail on a day Mike Fiers allowed six runs on seven hits and three walks in 41⁄3 innings.
“Another embarrassing start by me today,” Fiers said.
Fiers had uplifted an injured rotation with a surprising 3.59 ERA through 19 starts, but his rate is 7.90 in his last eight outings. He shook his head when asked about the cause of his decline.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Rotation talk
The acquisition of Justin Verlander and upcoming return of Lance McCullers Jr. likely will oust Fiers from a starting role.
Fiers said he is not thinking about that. His manager is.
“I’ll never talk about it here,” A.J. Hinch said after the game, “but it’s something that’s going to be talked about.”
Fiers gave up the Mets’ fifth run on a single by former Astros outfielder Nori Aoki, whom the Mets signed Saturday. Aoki went 3-for-4 with two RBIs.
Tyler Clippard came in to bail out Fiers but let Aoki score on a bases-loaded walk that got the Mets within a run at 7-6.
But Will Harris — who earned the win for a clean sixth inning in his second appearance back from injury — Luke Gregerson and Chris Devenski combined for four scoreless innings.
Devenski was shaky but effective. He wiggled out of having runners in scoring position in the eighth and a tightly called strike zone in the ninth to earn his fourth save.
When Fiers was responsible for letting the Mets score pairs of runs in the first and second innings, Alex Bregman catalyzed the comeback. He singled in his first two at-bats and scored both times.
The 23-year-old third baseman played 41 of 42 games Correa had missed and 23 of them at shortstop. He did not commit an error and batted .344 with 21 extra-base hits.
Hinch viewed Correa’s absence as an important period of adversity for the team.
“You learn a little bit about all your players because people step up,” Hinch said. “Even though we weren’t as dominant in that stretch as we were in previous games, we asked a lot of different things out of different guys. You learn about how connected these guys are, how much they feed off of each other.”
Correa felt left out of an eventful month-and-ahalf. The Astros peaked at 34 games over .500, came up empty at July trade deadline, then lost 12 of 16 games in August.
Clinching the AL West never seemed in doubt, but Correa hardly could handle the Astros’ faltering.
“It was tough to watch and not contribute,” he said. “It was super boring being in the clubhouse every day, rehabbing, and not doing anything.”
As he neared his return from a minor league rehab assignment, Correa was playing a video game and threw the remote controller to the ceiling when he found out the Astros had traded for Verlander this past Thursday.
“I was so excited that I broke my controller, and I couldn’t play anymore,” he said.
The rule of thumb
On Sunday, Correa wore a protective pad around his surgically repaired thumb and was tested when Jose Reyes slide headfirst into Correa’s glove and ankles for a stolen base.
Correa said he is not worried about aggravating his thumb because it has not experienced pain for weeks.
“My heart stopped with the collision at second base,” Hinch said. “That was a good hurdle to clear. An awkward play that he couldn’t control, gets his hand hit, comes out of it OK.”
Correa’s return also completes with Altuve the middle-infield duo that thrust the Astros’ prolific scoring bursts before the All-Star break and started for the AL All-Star Game team.
“We can’t take for granted that we have Altuve and Correa up the middle,” Hinch said. “When you lose that, you lose a little bit of how the whole team functions.”
Correa said he felt like “a child” back on the field.
“It feels like opening day all over again for me,” Correa, who is batting .320, said of his eagerness to pick up where he left off.
The Astros and their city likely feel the same way.