Trout solves Verlander in decisive inning
Simmons’ three-run double biggest blow in L.A.s’ four-run 6th
By traditional measures, advanced metrics and common sense, Mike Trout has established himself as the best baseball player on earth. But baseball is a sport whose every legend has a foe that makes him look mortal.
No one exploits Trout better than Justin Verlander.
Trout, an American League AllStar for seven consecutive seasons and a two-time Most Valuable Player for the Angels, has spent more time shaking his head than swinging his bat against Verlander.
The Astros’ righthanded ace, with seven All-Star selections and an MVP award of his own, has played nearly twice as long as Trout but has dominated their matchup with the rare high-heat/ power-breaking-ball combination to trouble Trout.
Trout hits below .200 on high fastballs, and Verlander throws more of them than anyone.
Trout was 4-for-32, with two home runs, in 39 plate appearances before they faced each other Thursday night at Minute Maid Park.
In their 40th clash, Verlander got ahead and got careful. His 3-2 pitch was called low despite looking like a strike. Trout jogged to first with a walk.
Verlander would not let the umpire decide the next at-bat. He attacked Trout with three pitches in the zone that left the slugger shaking his head and turning back to the visitors’ dugout.
Trout was one of Verlander’s 11 strikeouts. He also was one of the critical hits Verlander allowed in a sixth inning that pushed the Angels to a 5-2 win over the Astros.
After the duel between Verlander (13-9, 2.78 ERA) and lefty Andrew Heaney (8-8, 4.25) kept the game scoreless through five innings, Kole Calhoun led off the sixth with a double, and Trout jumped on a first-pitch slider to would put runners on the corners.
A double play would have ended the threat, but Trout’s blistering single might have been a sign Verlander was losing steam quickly. Justin Upton, a former teammate of Verlander’s in Detroit, threw his bat at an outside fastball and slashed it for an RBI single.
With that, Trout advanced to second, and Verlander was sent to the dugout in favor of the bullpen.
“He doesn’t give in,” Trout said. “It’s always a battle facing him.”
Although he set a career high with his ninth double-digit strikeout performance of the season, Verlander said after the loss that he disliked how the game transpired.
He did not hold his meager offensive support — which heading into Thursday was 4.35 runs per game, the lowest for any Astros starter — against his teammates. He vented about wanting to stay in the game because he felt strong. He had wanted to pitch his way out of the jam.
Astros manager A.J. Hinch said after the game he preferred the lefty-on-lefty matchup between Tony Sipp and Shohei Ohtani.
Sipp wound up walking Ohtani to load the bases, which prompted Hinch out of the dugout for another change.
The manager went to Will Harris to clean up the mess. Harris fired, and Andrelton Simmons turned him around. Harris slowly backpedaled toward home plate while watching the ball zip to the left-center gap for a three-run double.
The four-run inning proved to be more than enough production. The Astros did not pose a threat afterward. They got five hits off Heaney but had only one runner in scoring position before the ninth inning.
Heaney had been 0-8 with a 5.92 ERA in 17 road starts since September 2015.
Hinch credited the southpaw for throwing a fastball at higher velocity than the last time the Astros saw him, when they had scored five runs off him.
“Four out of the first five innings we had baserunners,” Hinch said. “They were erased one way or another.”
With two on in the fourth inning, Marwin Gonzalez fouled off six pitches, but Heaney prevailed. “He’s pesky,” Heaney said. Chris Devenski made his first appearance since returning from a month-long stint on the disabled list for hamstring tightness. After giving up singles to Ohtani and Simmons, Devenski balked, which played the Angels’ fifth run.
The comfortable lead came in handy. With Angels righthander Blake Parker on to finish the ninth, Alex Bregman extended an 11-game hitting streak and some hope in front of a sparse home crowd with a leadoff single.
Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa flew out, which set up another moment for Tyler White — the Astros’ hottest hitter in the season’s second-half.
White homered in the bottom of the ninth for the second consecutive night. But the two-run shot was not enough for victory. Gonzalez took a hastier approach than his grind-it-out method from earlier. He rolled over the first pitch he saw for an easy groundout.