First innings are a bugaboo so far for Astros pitchers against the Rangers in this series. But the outcomes have also been very different.
Last night, Tatsuya Imai started the game terribly but improved as the game went on. In the first inning, he walked three batters, getting saved by a double play, but somehow ended six innings with no hits and no runs on the way to a combined no-hitter.
Tonight, Jason Alexander started the game terribly but improved as the game went on. Except, in Alexander’s case, he gave up eight first-inning runs, more than the Astros could make back, but miraculously allowed only one more run through six.
It looks bad in the box score, but kudos to Alexander for toughing it out and saving the bullpen.
We never know which Jason Alexander will show up. The one who threw six shutout innings against Minnesota in his last start and five one-run innings against the Rangers, or the one who gave up eight runs in the first inning of this game.
It was a fiasco. Two walks, two singles, a double, a triple, a hit by pitch, and a Joc Pederson three-run homer put the game out of reach right away despite a noble Astros comeback attempt.
An Evan Carter solo homer in the third accounted for the ninth run against Alexander, who retired his next nine batters in order.
The Astros (or should I say Yordan Alvarez) did make a game out of it. A three-run, third-inning Alvarez homer got the Astros on the board. In the eighth, Alvarez and Cam Smith added two solo homers. The Smith homer hit 457 feet on the tape measure.
The Astros missed a big opportunity in the fourth inning when Jeremy Pena and Isaac Paredes stranded the bases loaded, leaving Alvarez on deck. They did score one run ahead of Pena on a Cesar Salazar hit by pitch.
The Orioles added their 10th and final run in the eighth on three singles, and Jeremy Pena kept the Astros on life support with a solo homer in the ninth, but it was too little, too late after the first inning disaaster.
Give credit to the Astros for fighting until the end in what looked like an early blowout. When was the last time a pitcher gave up eight runs in the first inning and only needed one other pitcher (A.J. Blubaugh) to finish the game? And the Rangers had to use their closer, Jacob Latz, for 1.1 innings, just to hold on.
Was it absolutely necessary to keep Alexander in the game and take 8 runs?