FAMILIAR SCRIPT
Bullpen blows five-run lead after seven innings in 11-8, 12-inning loss to Padres.
The Astros have a horrendous bullpen.
No lead is safe. No reliever can be completely trusted now.
Problems will plague this team until someone adequately addresses its one obvious shortcoming.
Career minor leaguers completing minor league rehab assignments are not the answer, no matter how many times their 2020 successes are rehashed. Pedro Báez’s return — if it ever arrives — can only mask so much. The troubles are too deep for one player to solve.
“Look at our core group,” pitching coach Brent Strom said before the game. “They work hard; they play hard. We have a good offense. You hate to have your end of things derail games. I take it personally.”
Saturday may serve as a tipping point, the sort of disaster that forces urgent action instead of mindless hope.
The Astros built a fiverun lead against the San Diego Padres at Minute Maid Park after seven innings. Their lineup lit up an ace, even absent three of its top hitters.
Starter Jake Odorizzi offered an excellent start against one of the sport’s most disciplined lineups, departing with a 5-0 lead. The Astros needed 11 outs from their bullpen to finish the job. Humiliation followed.
The Padres scored 10 runs over the final seven frames to win 11-8 in 12 innings. Ralph Garza Jr. gave up the go-ahead three-run homer to Wil Myers in the 12th in his major league debut, but it was the veterans who came before him who blew the game.
A day after allowing seven runs in the 11th inning of a 10-3 loss, Houston’s bullpen allowed 10 hits and walked six batters in the final 5⅔ innings.
The bullpen now has a 7.78 ERA over the first four games of this homestand, and Saturday’s debacle ballooned the season mark to 4.40. Only 10 bullpens entered play Saturday with a worse mark.
“We play 162 of these, and it’s in May right now,” closer Ryan Pressly said. “You’re obviously pretty upset that you let a game like this get away from you, but at the same time, you have to come back to the field ready to go tomorrow and put up a W.”
Pressly combusted for the first time this season, surrendering a game-tying home run to Fernando Tatis Jr. in the ninth.
A misplay from a fill-in first baseman did not help him. Nor did the offense’s consistent inability to come through in the clutch.
Houston finished 3for-22 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 baserunners. It scored just twice in the three extra innings — when a runner started on second base.
For the Astros to achieve anything of note, it’s apparent their offense must carry the team. A five-run lead in the seventh inning should be more than enough for a supposedly elite team. Given the players featured Saturday, it seemed an even greater accomplishment.
Baker wrote a lineup better served for a split-squad spring training game than a Saturday matinee against one of the sport’s best pitchers.
Yuli Gurriel and Yordan Alvarez did not play with vaguely described injuries. Garrett Stubbs caught a nine-inning major league game for the first time since June 19, 2019.
Padres ace Yu Darvish did nothing to take advantage, with Houston hanging a season-high four earned runs on his line.
He walked two of the first five hitters he saw. No opponent had drawn more than three walks against him in a start this season.
The Astros matched that in 4⅓ innings. Darvish also plunked Jose Altuve with a pitch in the fifth.
Houston had a baserunner in four of the five innings he worked, and the leadoff man reached thrice.
Carlos Correa crushed a two-run homer against him in the fourth. The Astros chased him in a three-run fifth inning that featured a leadoff double from eighthole hitter Myles Straw and a walk to Stubbs in the nine hole. Both scored to give Odorizzi a cushion.
In his first start since April 24, Odorizzi scattered three singles in 5⅓ innings and retired 12 of the final 14 men he faced.
Tatís struck out twice against him. If not for a 23pitch first frame, Odorizzi could have taken the team deeper.
Houston appreciated every out Odorizzi could muster. Asking this bullpen to accomplish anything more than the bare minimum is a miserable proposition.
“I wish I could have gotten a few more outs there to get us through the sixth inning,” Odorizzi said. “Maybe it sets us up a little bit better.”
He recorded only one out in the sixth. Victor Caratini and Tommy Pham hit hard singles to start it.
Brooks Raley hurried to get loose in the bullpen while Manny Machado loomed.
Odorizzi induced a flyout from the menacing Padres slugger. At 87 pitches, Baker decided the starter had reached his limit.
The bullpen door swung open.
Raley allowed a single and Tatis’ RBI groundout but stranded two baserunners. None of his teammates were as lucky.
Sidearmer Joe Smith allowed four of the six hitters he faced in the eighth to reach. Two scored before Pressly temporarily rescued the game by recording the inning’s final out.
He returned in the ninth and procured the first two outs with ease before Machado watched four pitches miss the strike zone and strode to first base.
“I don’t like walking people in general. When you walk people you’re not really giving yourself a chance,” Pressly said. “I’m pretty upset about walking him, but I’m human — I make mistakes. I just got to go back and flush this down the toilet and just come back and get ready to go tomorrow.”
Jake Cronenworth cranked a double down the left-field line, bringing up Tatís.
He came up with three strikeouts and the run-scoring groundout during a frustrating afternoon. The Astros attacked him up and in all afternoon, and he could not catch up. Pressly threw a 1-0 fastball in that exact area. Tatis hit it into foul territory for what should have been the final out.
Jones tracked it toward the dugout. This was his third major league start at first base, playing Saturday only after Gurriel got scratched with a finger injury. Jones took a step back and tripped, letting the ball fall behind him.
“I definitely had a shot at it,” Jones said. “As I was watching, I was trying to find the net and keep track of where the net was and obviously keep my eye on the ball. I kind of overran the ball a little bit, and by the time it started coming down, it was behind me. I missed it. Should have had it.”
Tatis took the gift with pleasure, pulverizing a fastball onto the train tracks above left field.
The blast traveled 448 feet, evoking memories of Albert Pujols’ mammoth go-ahead blast in Game 5 of the 2005 National League Championship Series. Saturday’s game carried none of the stakes, but few could tell by the celebration.
Tatis stared at his work for at least 30 seconds. He trotted around the bases slowly. A party erupted in the Padres dugout. They bestowed a celebratory chain to their shortstop — swagger that came at the expense of Houston’s sorry bullpen and the one reliever all assumed could be counted on.
“You gotta tip your hat to him,” Pressly said. “He’s an unreal hitter. I’d be more upset if I missed middle-middle.
“This game, unfortunately you get beat sometimes. But when I get beat, we tend to lose.”