Surge at the plate continues
Jones finishes single short of the cycle, drives in 4 as bench players power 2nd straight rout
Taylor Jones jogged to a patch of grass he wasn’t supposed to patrol and prepared to man a position he hardly plays.
The Astros’ walking wounded grew by one an hour earlier, stretching the diminished lineup to its limit. The club called upon a 31year-old rookie waiver claim to play third base, moved a 34-year-old outfielder with an extensive injury history to his most unfamiliar defensive position and gave Jones his sixth major league start in left field.
The circumstances could crater others. Houston used it for more fuel. A substitute-strewn lineup mauled the Seattle Mariners, a team allegedly trying to make a playoff run, 15-1. Two days here challenged any such notion.
The Astros have slaughtered Seattle in every way imaginable. Saturday’s victory followed a 12-3 triumph on Friday. Both games featured 15 hits. Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker have not taken an at-bat. Kendall Graveman and Ryan Pressly have not pitched.
Moments after Saturday’s game went final, Oakland finished off a 6-5 loss to San Francisco, widening Houston’s lead to 3½ games in the American League West.
Chas McCormick’s lateafternoon scratch on Saturday only allowed more teammates to participate in the pummeling.
Jones finished a single shy of the cycle. Third baseman Jacob Wilson collected two extra-base hits. He awoke on Saturday with one single in 16 career major league at-bats.
“That game was a lot of fun to be a part of,” Wilson said.
Wilson did not crack manager Dusty Baker’s original starting lineup. The skipper entered Saturday with one objective: give Aledmys Díaz a day off after 21 straight starts. He started Yuli Gurriel at third base and Jones at first to accomplish it. McCormick injured his left hand during batting practice to scuttle the plans. Michael Brantley moved to right field to replace him. Wilson went to third, Gurriel back to first and Jones ran to left.
Five batters later, the ball
found Jones. Houston starter Jake Odorizzi yielded a two-out single to Kyle Seager during the first. A walk to Ty France allowed Abraham Toro to hit. He hit an opposite-field single toward his former teammate.
Jones corralled it as Seager rounded third. He fired a throw home at 89.3 mph. It beat Seager by two steps. Odorizzi applauded the effort while backing up the play.
“It was a perfect throw,” Odorizzi said. “I had a great view of it the whole way. It was great. He picked us up early and we just kind of took off from there.”
Odorizzi lowered his ERA to 4.52 with 52⁄3 innings of one-run ball. He had a lead for each of the final five frames he began. Seattle struck out eight times against him, waving wildly against his elevated fourseam fastball. Odorizzi did issue four walks. France
hammered a mammoth solo
home run against him to start the sixth. It sliced Seattle’s deficit to 11.
“It’s never a bad thing,” Odorizzi said of the run support. “We saw it yesterday and saw it today. It’s good to string it together for two games in a row. We kind of went through a rough patch there for a little while, but that’s just like with any team. When we break out of it, it’s pretty impressive.”
The outburst allows most to forget the misery preceding it. Houston entered this series with a .316 on-base percentage and .730 OPS in August. Seattle brought the American League’s hottest pitching staff to Minute Maid Park. The Astros have hammered it.
“It’s always good to have games like this, it doesn’t matter what part of the season you are in,” second baseman Jose Altuve said. “That gives you confidence as a team to keep hitting
and keep winning games.”
Altuve had a four-hit game by the fifth inning. Houston sent 11 hitters to the plate in the fifth. Eight reached base, and six scored. The lineup struck seven of its 12 hits during the frame, chasing Seattle starter Logan Gilbert before bludgeoning reliever Robert Dugger. Dugger allowed the first five men he faced to reach base before mercifully procuring the third out.
Seattle selected Gilbert 14th overall in the 2018 draft. Before the season, Baseball America ranked him 35th on its Top 100 prospects list. Gilbert stands a gangly 6-6. His arsenal can be awesome. His four-seam fastball neared 98 mph. His slider and changeup each elicited wild swings from a lineup often devoid of them.
The Mariners are grooming Gilbert for their future rotations. Starts like Saturday demonstrate the minuscule
margin for error he must navigate to succeed. He struck out five in 42⁄3 frames, alternating impressive flashes with ill-advised decisions.
Gilbert’s first pitch of the game halved home plate. The four-seam fastball registered just 96.4 mph. Altuve annihilated it down the left-field line for a double. He is now 26-for-81 this season on the first pitch of a plate appearance. Pitchers must prepare accordingly. Gilbert learned the difficult way.
Brantley’s groundout to first base advanced Altuve to third. Carlos Correa chopped another toward shortstop that allowed him to score. Houston took a lead it did not relinquish.
A scoreless second inning only offered Gilbert a brief reprieve. Facing Wilson to start the third should have extended it. Wilson was claimed off waivers last month from the Oakland
A’s. He’s been with four major league organizations while also playing in Korea and the Dominican Republic.
Wilson is an unaccomplished hitter, but Gilbert fell behind him 2-1. He fired a fastball to get back in the count. Wilson whacked it to dead center field. It bounced off the base of the wall and rolled past center fielder Jarred Kelenic.
Wilson motored to third base for a long-awaited major league first. Gilbert threw his next pitch to the backstop. Wilson scored without a slide, starting a run-scoring carousel that did not stop.
“The guys were feeling it,” Baker said. “The guys were smelling it. We had some guys have some big nights.”