After starter Straily gets struck by line drive, then exits game, Astros tee offff on Miami bullpen.
MIAMI — For four innings, the Houston Astros couldn’t touch Dan Straily.
He hadn’t allowed a hit, and he was pitching like he might keep it up for who knows how long. Five innings? Six innings? Seven? He was in complete charge. But everything changed when Evan Gattis ripped a 108-mph liner up the middle to start the fififth. It struck Straily’s pitching arm, and nothing was the same after that for the Marlins.
Straily came out after the fififth, Junichi Tazawa took over, and the Astros went to town, with Yuli Gurriel hitting a grand slam to spark a 7-2 win over the Marlins.
One day after ending a fifive- game losing streak with a victory over Atlanta, the Marlins fell back to earth. They’ve lost 15 of their past 19 games, including eight of their past nine at home.
Whether they also lost Straily for any length of time was unclear.
Straily has quickly emerged as the most effffffffffffective starter in the rotation, becoming the fifirst pitcher in Marlins history to give up four hits or less in seven straight starts.
After getting drilled by the Gattis line drive, he continued pitching and managed to get through the inning despite allowing his fifirst hit, an Alex Bregman double.
He even came out to bunt in the fififth and dropped down a beauty.
But he was wearing a black compression sleeve to alleviate swelling, had engaged in a dugout chat with manager Don Mattingly and didn’t return for the sixth.
In came Tazawa, who struck out George Springer to start things. Following a Josh Reddick double, he retired Jose Altuve on a flfly ball.
Then it al l c ame unraveled for Tazawa, one of Miami’s offffseason free