Astros’ win streak hits 7 games in victory
7th straight win comes despite little offensive support for Miley
BALTIMORE — It is a bad time in Baltimore.
Under Jeff Luhnow’s former lieutenant Mike Elias, this Orioles are a team and franchise taking a similar tankingtype trajectory the Astros experienced in Luhnow’s first three seasons. Losses will pile up. Pitiful play will be frequent. Only the Detroit Tigers have suffered more losses.
Baltimore brought the sport’s worst earned-run average and third-worst OPS into Friday’s action. The thought of this Astros lineup languishing or struggling seemed silly. Winners of six straight games in which they slugged .646, the Astros had hopes of carrying the consistency to Camden Yards.
Nothing of the sort manifested. The
Astros mustered eight hits and stranded seven baserunners. Four stood in scoring position.
Jose Altuve’s run-scoring triple in the seventh inning snapped a 1-for-10 start with runners in scoring position, affording the Astros sorely needed separation in an otherwise sluggish 3-2 series-opening victory. The winning streak now stands at seven.
“We weren’t really holding our breath. We were just playing the game. We had some opportunities — a couple leadoff doubles we stranded at third and had a few at-bats that got away from us,” manager A.J. Hinch said.
“But the goal is to win the game. We did just enough to win the game.”
Altuve and catcher Robinson Chirinos gave the Astros their only multi-hit efforts. The bullpen, reinforced by the return of Ryan Pressly, buoyed the meager production. Four relievers combined to yield four baserunners behind starter Wade Miley.
“I like our pen,” sidearming reliever Joe Smith said. “I like, finally, that we’re playing with our whole team at full strength. Getting people off the IL.”
After Altuve’s triple upped the Astros’ advantage to two, Smith surren
dered a seventh-inning solo home run to Stevie Wilkerson. Smith induced a groundout from Jace Peterson before Orioles manager Brandon Hyde summoned Chris Davis.
In Baltimore’s last game, a 12run loss on Wednesday, Davis charged his first-year manager in plain view of cameras. Hyde did not start the supremely struggling lefthanded slugger on Friday, but he turned to him for two of the game’s most important at-bats.
They ended as you would expect. Davis, who in 2015 hit 47 home runs and garnered a $161 million contract, is a shell of himself. He accrued a .539 OPS last season and has a .584 mark now.
“He’s one swing away from changing the scoreboard,” Hinch said. “His struggles are well-documented and talked about. But he’s got a lot of homers on his résumé. You’re never going to take that for granted, and we’re not going to feed him pitches where he can hit. Our guys had to make pitches.”
Smith struck him out on four pitches, fixating his arsenal away. Closer Roberto Osuna opted to throw up and in during the ninth. Osuna fell behind 2-0 before Davis lined out to Altuve in the Astros’ pronounced infield shift, ending the game with the tying run at first base — a familiar predicament for the Astros’ bullpen.
The go-ahead run reached base with less than two outs in the eighth against Pressly, the All-Star setup man appearing for the first time since returning from the injured list.
Seventeen of Pressly’s 21 pitches were either sliders or curveballs. He fell behind, and later walked, Trey Mancini with his four-seamer. Anthony Santander scalded a single off the fastball, too, placing Pressly in a predicament that underscored the vast difference between both these clubs.
Baltimore brought their cleanup hitter and five-hole hitter to face Pressly. The pitcher spun nothing but sliders and curveballs. Neither Renato Nunez nor Jonathan Villar was capable of catching them. They struck out on 11 pitches, ending the jam.
“It feels good to have him back. He’s a big part of our bullpen,” Osuna said. “He’s going to help us a lot, everyone knows that, and we just have to continue to play well and win games.”
Starting in August 2016, Miley spent a miserable 15 months with the Orioles. He lost 20 of his 43 starts. His ERA was 5.75 with a 1.689 WHIP. He feared Orioles fans would not forget. Before the game, Miley predicted to his manager there would be be boos. At least one gentleman below the pressbox obliged.
It was with Baltimore that Miley grew so frustrated he made up his cutter mid-start and implemented it immediately. The pitch has since carried Miley to a career resurgence.
Fifty-one of his 100 pitches on Friday were cutters. The pitch performed as Miley intends. It induced soft contact and seven ground-ball outs. He stranded a leadoff double at third base during the first inning and left two more aboard in the third. Santander struck out to end that frame on cutter that tailed up and in.
“I was happy with it compared to last week,” Miley said. “I felt like it was more the one I want to throw. It was sharper and later. I still spiked a few of them but, for the most part, commanded the cutter OK. It was just the fastball (and) changeup where I was a little loose today.”
Miley’s command was erratic but he was able to compensate. He required 21 pitches to finish the first inning and 23 to escape the third. Defensive gems by his infield were helpful.
Miley finished 5⅔ innings with just Peterson’s solo home run on his line. His ERA is 2.99, below three for the first time since early April. Just five qualified American League starters own earned-run averages below three. Houston employs three of them — Miley, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander.