George Springer Beats the Astros, 2-1

Two Springer dingers thwarts otherwise stellar Luis Garcia start.

We’ll never forget George Springer and all the great heroics he performed here in Houston, Texas. And we’ll always love him, no matter what.

Even when he single-handedly defeats the Astros, like he did today. Two solo Springer dingers were all the offense the Blue Jays would need today as the Astros bats reverted to 2022 form, getting only one run on eight hits.

The Blue Jays opened the scoring with a leadoff home run by…who else…Springer, who smashed Luis Garcia’s 3-2 cutter just over the left field fence. It was the 46th of his career, making Springer the active leader in lead-off homers.

Garcia shut down the rest of the Jays lineup until he had to face Springer again, who hit another solo shot with one out in the third. After Bo Bichette followed Springer with a single, Garcia escaped the inning with a double play on Vladimir Guerrero to escape further damage.

In the fourth inning Yordan Alvarez said ENOUGH! He led off with a 447 foot bomb off Jose Berrios to the second deck in straight away center to bring the Astros back to within a run.

However, the Astros failed to take advantage of a golden opportunity after the home run. Yuli Gurriel followed Alvarez with a walk, then Kyle Tucker with a single, but with runners on first and second and no outs, the Astros stranded both runners.

The Blue Jays opened their fourth with a single by Lourdes Gurriel and and a walk to Raimel Tapia. However, after advancing both runners, Garcia was able to escape the jam unscathed.

In the fifth inning the Astros again opened the inning with runners on first and second with no outs and again could not capitalize.

In the bottom of the fifth Garcia managed to retire the first Jays batter, and got the third out by striking out Guerrero looking. Guerrero threw his bat down in protest, and his manager Charlie Montoya was ejected from the game after protesting on behalf of his superstar slugger.

For the game, Garcia managed to keep his season WHIP below one, allowing five hits and a walk in six innings pitched with five Ks. Unfortunately, two of the hits were the Springer dingers, who seemed to feast on the Garcia cutter.

Remaining true to the pattern, in the sixth inning the Astros again stranded two runners. This time it was Chas McCormick (who had two hits prior to the sixth and was robbed of a hit in the first), who was the anti-clutch, hitting a lame popup to shallow center field.

Through the rest of the game neither team would mount a significant threat, the Astros going down meekly one, two, three in the ninth giving Jays closer Jordan Romano the save.

For the game the Astros stranded 11 batters and were 0 – 8 with runners in scoring position.

At least Kyle Tucker stayed hot, getting two hits, but the Astros were unable to string together enough hits to counter the advantage George Springer gave the Jays.

Tomorrow the Astros and Jays face off in the rubber match of the series. Game time 12:37 CT.

Box score and videos here.