Astros come back after being down early, win 8-5 in Tigers opener

Matching two-run shots from Altuve and Walker lead a comeback for second-straight win after the shutouts in KC

Despite leaving down 3-2, Houston Astros starter Ronel Blanco had a decent start, only allowing three hits. The problem was that two of those hits left the yard.

The Tigers jumped out front first after the first two base runners allowed by Blanco both scored in the top of the third when Kerry Carpenter poked a two-out oppo-homer just over the head of Jose Altuve in left. They added more to that in the next inning when Riley Greene snuck a fastball into the Crawford Boxes, putting the Tigers up 3-0 in the fourth.

It wasn’t till then that the Astros bats finally woke up to back their pitcher.

After a two-out walk from Isaac Paredes, Christian Walker came up to the plate for his second at-bat and, as Astros play-by-play announcers Todd Kalas and Geoff Blum were talking about Walker breaking out of his slump to start the season, he shot a ball nearly 400-ft onto the train tracks to bring the Astros to within one.

Blanco gave the Astros one more inning on the mound before being taken out with his team down a run. Only allowing three hits, Blanco fell victim to his own ballpark, with two of those hits sneaking their way into the Crawford Boxes.

Ronel Blanco’s final line:

5 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K, 84-52 (Total pitches – Strikes)

After a clean inning from Astros new bullpen star Steven Okert, they got the bottom half of the sixth started with a single from leadoff hitter Jeremy Peña to bring up Altuve, hitting in the two-hole for his first time since early this season. After fouling off a slider first pitch, Altuve got a fastball in almost the exact same place as Walker and sent the ball to the exact same place for a two-run bomb, putting the Astros in front 4-3.

The home runs from Altuve and Walker were almost the same in every way. Both got fastballs up and in and hit them to the same spot, with Walker’s going 399 and Altuve’s going 396.

Houston’s bullpen continued to shut down the Tigers while their bats kept adding on runs for their pitchers.

They extended their lead to five after a four-run seventh got started with back-to-back errors, put runners on second and third and brought the infield in for Mauricio Dubón, who poked a ball into shallow center for two runs. They got two more runs across with RBIs from Altuve and Yordan Alverez, putting them up 8-3 heading to the eighth.

The Tigers did add two more runs in the eighth with Greene’s second homer of the day off reliever Kaleb Ort, but that didn’t matter as manager Joe Espada turned to his ace closer Josh Hader who shut the door, giving the Astros the 8-5 win and Hader his eighth save of the year.

Even without hitting in his usual spot, Altuve still finds a way to get it done at the plate, going 2-4 with three RBI. And the guy who took his spot at leadoff, Peña, didn’t have a bad day either, picking up two hits himself.

One interesting stat to watch early on in the season is Okert’s and Hader’s stat lines, which, following this game, remain almost identical to each other. Both through their first 14 innings, they both have a 0.64 ERA in 12 games. The only difference comes in WHIP, with Okert still not having a walk this season, resulting in a 0.39 WHIP compared to Hader’s 0.71.