ASTROS DROP ANOTHER TO ANGELS, WHO PULL CLOSER TO SECOND AL WILD-CARD SPOT
September swoon continues as bullpen gives away late lead
Game No. 153 really isn’t the time for the bullpen and big hits to simultaneously disappear.
The Astros spent the money last winter to upgrade the bullpen. For the first five months of this season, the late-inning party was on, and they even went for gold, trying to add a big arm at the deadline.
But San Diego’s Craig Kimbrel and Cincinnati’s Aroldis Chapman stayed put, and the back end was the one area of the team that didn’t get a midseason boost.
Someone who misses bats with high heat or someone else who simply gets outs would look really good now.
Welcome to September, when Astros
relievers have the highest ERA in the majors at 6.63 and blew a lead in a disheartening 6-5 rubbermatch loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday at Minute Maid Park.
David Freese’s go-ahead, two-out double off the base of the wall in left-center eluded left fielder Colby Rasmus and scored a pair to give the Angels a 5-4 lead in the eighth inning. That rip came off Pat Neshek, who has had as poor a go as any of late.
Rasmus might have misjudged the ball with a jump that didn’t help him at the wall, but it was a tough play. Neshek then allowed an RBI single to former Astros minor league catcher Carlos Perez for a 6-4 deficit and exited to boos.
“I’m good to go. I blew the game the other night,” Neshek said. “I was up five straight days. … You don’t really sit (and dwell) on anything anymore. It’s a different game every night.”
Carlos Correa’s twoout RBI-single cut the margin to 6-5 in the ninth and gave Angels closer Huston Street a rematch with Jed Lowrie. Lowrie hit a go-ahead homer off Street in Anaheim earlier this month, but Lowrie this time grounded out to end the game. A two-game swing
In the seventh, the Astros (80-73) gained a 4-3 advantage on a go-ahead, two-run triple from George Springer.
At that point, they appeared on their way to winning a rubber match that, either way, would alter the look of the wild-card race. Springer hit a liner to right with two down, but the eighth inning killed that buzz.
The Angels (78-74) sit 11/2 games behind the Astros for the AL’s second wildcard spot but would have been 31/2 back had they lost. And the Twins are only a game behind Houston.
The Astros finished 3-for-19 with runners in scoring position in the final two games of the series, both losses. No big hits and poor relief pitching are the recipe for a loss in most any series, never mind such an important one.
“It’s a results-oriented business, so when you don’t make pitches or don’t come up with hits, it’s certainly a factor,” said manager A.J. Hinch, who considered using Luke Gregerson in the eighth inning. “It’s like any decision I make: They’re good decisions when they work; they’re bad decisions when they don’t. When hitters come through with two outs, it’s clutch hitting; when they don’t, they’re not coming through.
“Our sport is built on what we did or didn’t do and whether we had success or not. Is Jose Altuve the guy I want up to bat with the bases loaded in the second inning? Absolutely. I’ll take him every time. Did he not come through? He didn’t. He didn’t get a hit with two outs. He grounded out to third.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Jose Altuve’s approach. I don’t think there’s anything with how we went about it with runners in scoring position. The results aren’t coming for us in those particular instances the last two nights, and we’ve gotten some losses out of it. The days where we come through, we feel pretty good, and we get some wins.”
Lacking clutch hits
Through Aug. 31, the Astros had the fourth-best bullpen ERA in the majors at 2.73, second in the AL to Kansas City.
At some point in a pennant race, the players have to get hits when needed and with some consistency. Hinch can match up his hitters off his bench for days with expanded September rosters, but it doesn’t matter if they can’t succeed often enough.
All the little things add up, as Astros starter Mike Fiers said Wednesday, criticizing his own work, which like that of most every Astros starter these days was quality. But that principle is what’s driving this September swoon, too, when the Astros have won seven of 21 games.
“You could do a million things differently,” Hinch said. “You could scratch a few runs across in the beginning of the game when we had (Angels starter Nick) Tropeano on the ropes.
“Baseball, you can make decisions on the front end on what you like — and I would bet Neshek could get Freese out on a 2-2 pitch. And he was a foot away from it.”