The Astros Go Full Clutch City in the 11th. Take the Mets 10-5

The Astros traverse .500 for the first time this year and are only 3.5 games behind in the AL West race.

What a rollercoaster season. Despite a continued epidemic of injuries, everything that was going wrong for the Astros in April is going right for the Astros in a 17-8 June. The Astros organization is so bereft of viable, healthy starting pitching options that today they had to rely on the opener gambit against one of the hottest and most stacked offenses in baseball.

And it worked!

And a team that earlier in the season couldn’t get a clutch RBI to save its season today was 7-16 with runners in scoring position, including 5-7 in extra innings.

The fire is burning again. The Astros are above .500 for the first time this year. And the Seattle Mariners must be looking nervously over their shoulder as their traditional nemesis is only 3.5 games behind them for first place in the AL West.

The Astros scored first in the second inning on a just-barely, wind-driven solo home run by Jon Singleton, his sixth of the year.

They added two more in the fourth inning starting with an Alex Bregman double and an RBI Yainer Diaz single, his team-leading 41st RBI of the season.

Yordan Alvarez, who walked ahead of Diaz, scored on a Jake Meyers groundout. The Astros added their fourth run in the fifth on a Jose Altuve bloop RBI single, scoring Mauricio Dubon.

(Altuve would later be ejected for disputing a non-call when a hit ball that clearly hit his foot was called a ball-in-play resulting in out three of the seventh inning.)

Using the opener gambit, the Astros staff miraculously held the Mets scoreless and hitless for five innings starting with 3.1 innings by Shawn Dubin, and 1.2 from rookie Bryan King. In the second inning, Dubin was particularly fortunate, getting three outs on balls hit harder than 105 MPH. Great defense helped a little too. But in the sixth, the Mets finally broke through against Seth Martinez, the big hit a two-run double by Mark Vientos.

In the seventh, the Mets got to the heart of the Astros bullpen with a two-run homer by Brandon Nimmo against Bryan Abreu, who hadn’t pitched before today for nine days, tying the score at four each.

The Astros wasted an opportunity in the eighth after Yainer Diaz slashed a line drive double to the wall in right field, a home run if it were hit at the park across the Hudson in the Bronx. However, Diaz was stranded by a Jake Meyers strikeout at the hands of Astros product Adrian Houser.

Diaz appears to be fulfilling the potential we glimpsed in him last year. In June, not including today’s 3-5 showing, Diaz is hitting .347, with a 157 wRC+.

In the ninth inning, Jon Singleton led off with a single, his third hit of the game. However, pinch-runner Joey Loperfido was easily thrown out trying to steal second, squashing the possible rally.

After a long rain delay, the Astros surprisingly sent Tayler Scott in rather than Josh Hader to keep the score tied in the bottom of the ninth, which he did admirably in 1-2-3 fashion. In the top of the tenth the Astros scored the ghost runner on a single by Chas McCormick, (in for Altuve) but another rally was extinguished by baserunning when McCormick was thrown out stealing second by Mets catcher Luis Torrens.

The Mets answered the Astros in their half of the tenth against Scott, pitching for the third straight day, with a double by that Nimmo guy. But after a walk, Scott rallied to put down the Mets and give the Astros another shot in the eleventh inning.

The Astros tore the door down in the 11th with five runs. Mets reliever Matt Festa opted to walk Yordan Alvarez to lead off the inning, but Yainer Diaz followed with a bases-loading single, his third hit of the game and second three-hit game of the series.

Then the turnstiles started rolling. Jake Meyers hit an RBI single, rookie first baseman (today) Joey Loperfido went oppo to double home two more, and with two outs, first-year Astro Trey (the head) Cabbage, doubled in two more on a low liner clocked at 111.1 MPH that barely landed in the outfield but skipped all the way to the right-center field wall.

With Loperfido and Cabbage, we’ve hardly missed that injured right-fielder person.

In his second big-league appearance, Luis Contreras shut down the Mets in the 11th.

The Astros lost the first game of the series with their ace throwing, won the second game when All-Star Framber Valdez had a meltdown game, and won the series today on a bullpen day when the opener came in with a 5.64 ERA and their closer got burned warming up before the rain and was unavailable in extra innings.

The winning pitcher was Tay Scott, who came into this season with a career ERA of 9.00 but whose 2024 ERA now sits at 1.49.

Is a dramatic season turnaround just another chapter in the story of the Astros’ Championship Era?

Stay tuned.

The Astros turn around tomorrow for a day game in Toronto, game time 2:07 CT. It might be a good day to find out if Mauricio Dubon can pitch.

Box score HERE.