Astros fall short of fifth season-sweep; lose 7-6 to Rockies

Multi-hit games from four different Astros wasn’t enough to win this one

After barely scraping by with wins in both of the first two games of the series against the Colorado Rockies, the Houston Astros couldn’t finish the sweep, losing the final game of the series 7-6.

For the second game in a row, the Astros got things going first and early and, like yesterday, the scoring started with Cam Smith. After back-to-back singles from Meyers and Altuve, Smith roped a double into right for the first run of the game.

They added one more before getting out of the top of the first, and this came thanks to Christian Walker, whose groundout to third allowed Altuve to score and put the Astros up 2-0 quickly.

The Rockies answered both of these runs in the bottom half of the first, before the Astros jumped right back on-top after Hummel went first-to-home on a Paredes double, capped off with an amazing slide into home, to go up 3-2 in the second.

After the Rockies came back and took their first lead of the day, the Astros got back on the board, but it wasn’t till the seventh. With two-on and two-outs, Smith smacked his third hit of the game, a two-RBI triple, to tie the game at five.

This back-and-forth kept going after this when the Rockies instantly took the lead back and extended it in just the next inning with two RBI-singles, giving them the 7-5 win.

Houston was able to get on the board one last time in the top of the ninth after a leadoff-triple from Meyers scored on an Altuve RBI-groundout, but it wasn’t enough to come back, losing 7-6.

On the mound, Astros starter Brandon Walter wasn’t able to stay competitive on the mound. Despite getting help from his offence, Walter still left the game down thanks to multiple soft-contact base-hits.

His outing is summed up by two things: Other than the home run that Walter gave up, only one other hit allowed by him, a double in the third, was for extra-bases. And he did not strike out a single batter after the first inning.

Actually, of the Rockies 13 hits in the game, 10 of them were singles and they still were able to get seven runs across.

Brandon Walter’s final line:

5 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 91-62 TP-S

The first arm out of the pen for Houston was Jordan Weems, pitching for just his second time as an Astro. After a clean first, Weems allowed two in his second inning of work, the two runs that put the Rockies up.

He was followed by Ort, pitching for the second night in a row, who gave Houston his second scoreless-inning in a row.

Coming in as the worst team in all of baseball, the Rockies somehow managed to figure out the Astros pitchers every game, despite losing two of them. In all three games of the series, Colorado ended each game with at least 10 hits, but hit a combined 6-22 with runners in scoring position, with four of those coming today.

This loss marks the first time the Astros have lost to Colorado in their last eight outings, with their last loss to the Rockies coming July 18, 2023.

One person that is leaving Colorado feeling good and that’s Cam Smith. In the three-game series, Smith finished with eight hits, going 8-15 at the plate.

The Astros leave Colorado and go from facing the worst team in the MLB to the best, starting a three-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. That will kick off tomorrow with the first game starting at 8:10 P.M.