Astros avoid sweep in Seattle
SEATTLE — The plight of the reliever has long been to stay out of the newspaper when he does well, only to be splashed on the proverbial back page when he gives up the lead.
So when not one, not two, not three but five relievers are excellent— as Tony Sipp, Will Harris, Joe Thatcher, Pat Neshek and Luke Gregerson were Sunday — they deserve the spotlight. That group combined for 52⁄3 innings of two-hit, scoreless pitching in a 6-2 Astros win over the Mariners, bailing out rookie starter Vince Velasquez from his terribly inefficient day at Safeco Field.
“We’ve been used a lot here this last week,” said Neshek, who got three ground balls in a perfect seven-pitch eighth inning, lowering his ERA to 2.77. “Early on, we knew it was going to be a dogfight, because Vince had a lot of pitches. He didn’t give up runs, but we knew it was going to be a close game.
“I think it might have helped us. For the most part, we’ve done what we’ve done all year and went out there and tried to preserve that lead.”
The Astros avoided a three-game sweep by the Mariners, who are trying to climb back in the American League West race.
The reliever procession was quiet and effective. Bullpens operate with the mentality of a unit, which can seem counterintuitive in a team sport that boils down to an individual game, but it’s nonetheless how they operate. They’re a crew.
Games like Sunday’s, in which almost all of the group is called on, are rare, and success in those games brings high pride.
“I know we had a couple of (games like these),” Neshek said. “I don’t know the numbers, but I know the guys were talking, ‘Hey, we had a rough one in there in Chicago (where the bullpen allowed all
the runs in a 4-1 loss to the White Sox on June 10). You know, at our place with Seattle (in the next series), we started a good (streak of performances) again.’
“That’s really what this game’s about — getting on those rolls and riding them, and having confidence up there. I think we’re pitching with a lot of confidence right now.”
Per FanGraphs’ wins above replacement, the Astros have had the thirdbest bullpen in the American League this season. The 2.59 ERA with which they entered Sunday was fourth best in the majors, and the .191 opponents average was the lowest anywhere.
Harris, who took the win and moved to 4-0, has held opponents to an eye-popping .093 average (10-for-107). He has struck out 36 and walked nine.
It was a chief goal of general manager Jeff Luhnow’s offseason to find a dominant bullpen. He’s done it.
Now, to figure out the rotation. The third start of the 23-year-old Velasquez’s career was his shortest, although not his worst. He allowed just one run and two hits. The problem was the number of pitches he needed to go 31⁄3 innings: 93, 36 of which were balls.
“That’s about as many pitches as you can throw in the shortest amount of time, I think, probably in history,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “But I will say getting out of that first inning with one run, regardless of how he sort of got through it, was a real key in this game. If I got to go to the bullpen in the first or second inning, we’re in a lot more trouble than we ended up being.”
The Astros never trailed Sunday, taking a 1-0 lead in the first inning, which George Springer began with yet another hit. After a three-hit day that included a home run, his career-best hitting streak is up to 14 games, and his average is up to .284.
Evan Gattis scored him with a single.
“I knew he had talent, but everybody here has talent to do great things. But it’s all about finding that magic juice, that magic mojo to get it going, and he’s found it right now,” Colby Rasmus said of Springer. “Hopefully, he can ride the wave and keep it going.”
But walks to two of the first three Mariners hitters didn’t bode well for Velasquez, who allowed a tying single to Nelson Cruz in the first. Velasquez thought he lost the mental game.
“Just lack of focus,” he said. “I threw more pitches than normal, and hitters fouling it off … it gets to you, and that’s where you’ve got to be consistent. I just lost the battle. I tried to go after another hitter, but walk after walk after walk kills you.”
Rasmus, who along with Springer had multiple hits, hit a ground-rule double to begin the second and scored on Luis Valbuena’s one-out single for a 2-1 Astros lead.
The teams traded runs in the fifth, putting the Astros up 3-2 before their long-ball barrage began.
It’s always coming. It’s just a matter of when.
“You always need the home runs,” Hinch said. “We always need the home runs.”
Rasmus hit his 10th home run in the seventh, a two-run shot to right that gave the Astros a 5-2 cushion and made him the fifth Astros player to reach double digits this season.
Springer hit his 12th homer in the ninth. The two late homers extended the Astros’ franchise record to eight straight games with multiple homers.
The Astros are five games through an eightgame trip that ends with three in Los Angeles against the Angels starting Monday.