15-game winning streak vs. Seattle snapped
Devenski gives up three runs in eighth as rally not enough in first loss of season
Even against the Mariners, you can’t win ’em all.
Called on to preserve an eighth-inning lead Sunday, Chris Devenski surrendered three runs as the Astros fell to Seattle 7-6 at Minute Maid Park, ending their 15-game winning streak against a team projected to finish last in the American League West again.
With closer Roberto Osuna unavailable and the Astros up 5-4, manager Dusty Baker was saving Ryan Pressly for the ninth. But Devenski ran into trouble when Tim Lopes led off the eighth with a single and stole second base with one out.
After Austin Nola walked, Shed Long singled to right field to plate Lopes with the tying run and send Nola to third. Devenski got J.P. Crawford to pop out, but after Long stole second, Kyle Lewis stroked a two-run line drive to right to put the Mariners up 7-5.
Three games might be an early sample, but Lewis already could have the Astros’ vote for AL Rookie of the Year. The center fielder homered off Justin Verlander and Lance McCullers Jr. in the first two games of the series before delivering Sunday’s decisive hit.
“He’s a talented young man,” Baker said of Lewis. “He’s prone to the strikeout, but if you don’t make a good pitch on him, it seems like when he hits, it’s a base hit. He’s talented — he’s real talented. He’s young, he’s strong, he’s fast. He’s a guy that has a very bright future.”
The Astros, who went 18-1 against the Mariners a year ago, found themselves in a 4-1 hole after a subpar start by Zack Greinke, who allowed three runs on four hits and two walks in 3 1⁄3 innings.
“The first inning, my stuff felt OK, but I threw too many pitches that were hittable over too much of the plate,” said Greinke, who was charged with two runs in the first and one in the fourth before exiting after his 58th pitch. “And then the second inning, felt OK. Third inning, started getting tired, and all the stuff got a lot worse in the third inning. I felt worse in the fourth.”
Joe Biagini allowed another run in the fourth, but the Astros surged ahead with four runs in the bottom of the inning, highlighted by Yuli Gurriel’s RBI single, a bases-loaded walk to Josh Reddick and a two-run single by Martin Maldonado, who has six RBIs in the season’s first three games and is hitting .455.
Bryan Abreu and Blake Taylor teamed for three scoreless innings before Devenski encountered trouble in the eighth. The Astros pulled within a run in the ninth on Michael Brantley’s twoout RBI double, but Brantley was stranded at second when Alex Bregman swung though a 3-2 Taylor Williams slider to end the game.
Williams, who also fanned George Springer and Jose Altuve in the ninth, earned the first save of his four-year major league career.
Osuna has 154 saves but was deemed unavailable Sunday after making his season debut Saturday night, when the summer camp mystery surrounding him seemed to gain clarity.
Osuna, a late arrival who threw off a mound only once during camp workouts, had been targeted to return during the upcoming two-game home series against the Dodgers. But he lobbied pitching coach Brent Strom for an appearance in Saturday’s 7-2 win over Seattle and tossed 16 pitches in a scoreless, low-leverage inning.
Baker had characterized Osuna as being in “fair shape” when he got to camp, and Osuna did little but run wind sprints and play long toss for most of the Astros’ three-week ramp-up.
On Thursday, general manager James Click disagreed with an assertion that Osuna was “out of shape.” He pointed to Osuna’s intake testing process, which Click claimed took longer than usual. All players were tested for COVID-19 and quarantined for 24-48 hours upon their arrival before summer camp.
“He was behind,” Baker said of Osuna on Saturday. “We tried to get him a low-impact, low-leverage type outing before his real outings to save the game. That always helps to get those jitters out of you.”
That said, the jitter bug struck Devenski on Sunday, when the Astros became the last American League team to suffer their first loss of the season.