Houston gets walked out of Seattle by Randy Arozarena.
Houston came into today’s late-afternoon affair with a chance to get back to .500.
Hunter Brown got his turn with a chance to take the deciding game in a three-game affair with the Seattle Mariners. For his part, he was more than up to the task, pitching six innings of shutout ball, walking zero, allowing two hits, and collecting six innings worth of outs (including three strikeouts). He got 68-of-98 pitches over the plate, compared to just 57-of-100 by opposing starter Luis F Castillo, and faced just the two over minimum.
Houston scored three runs early on RBI-singles from Jake Meyers, Cam Smith, & Jose Altuve in the second inning. Brendan Rodgers added an insurance run with a bases-loaded third-inning walk to make it 4-0. Yordan Alvarez hit a sacrifice fly deep into the opposite field with the bases loaded in the eighth to bring home Smith for a 5-0 lead.
Castillo faced 23 batters, and allowed five walks, six hits, and four runs (three earned). He struck out three and only lasted four innings. Bennett Sousa walked two of the three batters he faced, then Luis Contreras got the final two outs to keep the shutout intact to close the seventh. Unfortunately, Contreras allowed the three batters he faced in the eighth to all reach base. When Steven Okert relieved him with nobody out and retired the first two batters without breaking a sweat, I was ready to pop the champagne, then Randy Arozarena (3) hit a grand slam to close the gap to one run.
Protecting a one-run lead to open the ninth inning, Jeremy Peña scored an insurance run on a Casey Lawrence wild pitch to double Houston’s lead to 6-4. Bryan Abreu relieved with a chance at his 10th career save. It was not meant to be. Abreu was not good. He gave up two runs on three hits and a walk, blowing the save, then issued a bases-loaded walk to Arozarena to force the winning run home. Already the hero of the day by WPA, Arozarena’s contribution to Seattle’s win put his numbers in 2020 World Series territory. Abreu, meanwhile, snatched defeat from the clutches of victory.
On the WPA scale, Julio Rodriguez (+53.0) and Randy Arozarena (+50.5) were co-POTG for the M’s. Abreu’s train wreck (-92.4 WPA) derailed solid efforts from Hunter Brown (+21.6), Jeremy Peña (+16.0), Cam Smith (+8.6), Jake Meyers (+8.1) and Jose Altuve (+4.5).
JP Crawford (+6.7), Miles Mastrobuoni (+17.2) and Victor Caratini (+3.4) were the only other players with positive WPA for the game.
The Astros take a vacation day on Thursday before hosting the AL West-leading Los Angeles Angels at Daikin Park for three dates starting Friday.