No save for Abreu, but he saved the day with 8th-inning escape
The white-knuckle moment had a postseason feel in a juiced Minute Maid Park. George Springer stood at the plate with the bases loaded and a full count in the eighth inning.
Only this time Springer, a one-time World Series Most Valuable Player for the Astros, was wearing the opposing team’s laundry. Springer drilled a pitch from Astros reliever Bryan Abreu down the third-base line as the crowd caught its breath — and watched the ball fly into the glove of Astros third baseman Alex Bregman.
Springer fired his bat into the dirt in disgust and leaned over in absorbing the deflating moment for the visiting Toronto Blue Jays, while Abreu exhaled and allowed himself an instant to enjoy the harrowing escape act.
“I was just hoping it got caught,” Abreu said of his first thought at the crack of the bat. “And as soon as I saw Bregman with the ball I said, ‘Yeah, let’s (build) on this and let’s get (another) out.’ ”
The Astros defeated the Blue Jays 8-1 on Wednesday night to win their first home series this season, and anyone merely glancing at the final score wouldn’t realize the contest was full of late drama — and saved on the hill by a brilliant long showing by Astros starter Luis Garcia and an eye-popping short showing from Abreu.
“If anybody can get out of trouble with his stuff,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said of Abreu, “it’s him.”
The Astros (9-10) clung to a 2-1 lead in the top of the eighth when the Blue Jays (11-8) loaded the bases against reliever Rafael Montero with no outs for Springer. After retiring Springer, Abreu struck out Bo Bichette.
The final out of the antagonizing inning for the home team came when the Blue Jays’ Vlad Guerrero Jr. lofted a lazy fly ball to center as the crowd roared — on the ninth pitch of his at-bat.
“That was a pretty tough situation,” Abreu said.
That was an understatement.
“You get those first two outs, and then you get a guy up there as dangerous as Guerrero, and you make some quality pitches on him. That allowed us to come back in the bottom of the eighth and score a lot of runs,” Baker said.
Freed of the bases-loaded jam, the suddenly freeswinging Astros scored six runs in the bottom of the eighth to shove the contest out of reach and give Houston its second series victory out of six this season.
“It was much needed for us,” Baker said of the Astros also collecting their first home series victory out of four this year.
In the bottom of the eighth, Astros newcomer José Abreu lined a twoout, two-run single that put the Astros ahead 4-1. Kyle Tucker then added an RBI single, and Jeremy Peña punctuated the six-run inning with his third homer of the season, a threerun blast into the Crawford Boxes in left field.
Thus, a harrowing onerun game suddenly morphed into a blowout.
For his part, Garcia, who started the season 0-2 with a 7.71 ERA, was viciously efficient over seven innings and 92 pitches. He had seven strikeouts over the first three innings thanks primarily to a teeth-grinding cutter, and he finished with nine strikeouts to tie a career high.
“I thought I was going to strike out more, because I started off with six right away,” Garcia said. “I’m really happy for the cutter right now. … It makes me more confident in what I can do. Then Bryan came in and did what he always does.”