Wondrous walkoff
Correa’s game-winning hit ends personal slump at 15, team skid at 4
Every inning or two for an hour and a half Tuesday night, a new member of the Astros’ bullpen trotted in from right-center field and took his place on the Minute Maid Park mound.
Each one threw up zeros.
And in the 13th inning, after Tony Kemp smacked a triple over the head of Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones, Carlos Correa sent the Astros home with a 3-2 win with a walkoff single. The victory snapped a four-game losing streak.
Correa, hitless in his previous 15 at-bats, stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and no out against righthander Dylan Bundy after the Orioles intentionally walked George Springer and Jose Altuve. Correa shot a 1-1 fastball to center field and the Astros mobbed him at first base.
“Carlos Correa will be fine,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch. “I think his season is below the standard in which he’s going to live in his career. But we are only in May, and there are going to be a ton of stretches here where he’s the highlight of the night. Tonight’s one of them.”
Through 12 innings, the Astros had only six hits, three via Springer, who reached base in five of six plate appearances in his first game in the leadoff spot. Jose Altuve had come to bat with runners on first and second in the 10th but smacked a sharp line drive right at Orioles first baseman Chris Davis.
Before extra innings, the eighth inning against sidearmer Darren O’Day
presented the Astros’ best opportunity to take hold of the game. Hustling out of the batter’s box, Springer reached second base on a one-out flare that dropped in front of slow-footed right fielder Mark Trumbo.
Altuve smoked an 0-2 fastball to the warning track in center field, allowing Springer to easily tag up to third base, but Correa’s scolded line drive was directed right at second baseman Jonathan Schoop to end the threat.
Orioles righthander Chris Tillman continued his bounce-back season, the former All-Star holding the Astros to two runs and three hits over seven innings. Luis Valbuena’s two-run homer in the fifth cemented the only damage against Tillman.
Valbuena’s homer, his third of the season, was only the third Tillman has surrendered in 582⁄3 innings. The Orioles’ veteran righthander had retired 12 of the 13 batters he had faced entering the fifth.
The Orioles scored both of their runs against Doug Fister via solo home runs. Pedro Alvarez clubbed a hanging curveball into the rightfield seats in the fifth, and Manny Machado led off the sixth launching a full-count fastball 410 feet over the left-field fence.
The Astros’ bullpen was stellar in relief of Fister, who allowed only three hits but lasted just 52⁄3 innings because of a high early pitch count. Tony Sipp took over for the starter with two outs in the sixth and retired each of the four batters he faced, the first three via strikeouts.
Ken Giles, back on track after his terrible April, worked around a two-out Adam Jones single in a scoreless eighth, striking out Machado on only three pitches in the pitcher’s eighth consecutive scoreless appearance.
Luke Gregerson worked around a basesloaded situation with two outs in a scoreless ninth. After allowing singles from Matt Wieters and Schoop and a walk to Ryan Flaherty, the Astros closer struck out Joey Rickard on three sliders away to cap the threat.
Will Harris took care of the most dangerous part of the Orioles’ lineup, Machado, Jones and Davis, in the 10th for his 19th consecutive scoreless appearance, the longest active streak in the majors.
And Scott Feldman continued the bullpen’s scoreless run in the 11th and 12th, working around one-out doubles in both innings. In the latter frame, he struck out Adam Jones and Chris Davis to strand two runners on base.
Michael Feliz took over for the 13th and struck out the side. The Astros’ bullpen combined for 16 strikeouts in its 71⁄3 innings.
“The bullpen was in- credible,” Hinch said. “To get 16 strikeouts … each guy came in and did a job. We had a little bit of trouble there, but guys pitched out of it. To a man, those guys came in and closed out innings with zeros when we really, really needed it.”