For the first time since August 8 last year, Josh Hader took the mound for the Astros, this time with a two-run lead in the ninth inning. As someone who has watched Houston’s bullpen implode numerous times already this season, it was reassuring to see Hader once again.
It wasn’t reassuring to watch other pitchers’ struggles, though.
Both Spencer Arrighetti and Paul Skenes failed to throw more than five innings, with Joe Espada electing to replace the former with Alimber Santa to start the fifth inning. Skenes only completed 4 2/3 innings, allowing three earned runs. Arrighetti allowed six hits and four earned runs, including Henry Davis’ grand slam in the fourth inning. It wasn’t a good game for many pitchers in general, with both bullpens allowing 13 combined runs.
Thankfully, the Astros’ lineup managed to pick up the slack, racking up 14 hits and scoring 11 runs in total.
Yordan Alvarez had four hits. Cam Smith had a day, accumulating two hits and driving in three. Issac Paredes got his seventh home run of the season. Even Nick Allen picked up two hits. Add it all together and you get 11 runs. Six of Houston’s runs occurred with two outs in the eighth inning. While the pitching staff failed for much of the game, the lineup made it count when it mattered most. 0-32 entering today when trailing after eight innings. They’re now 1-32 after this win.
Now 28-35, it remains an uphill climb up the standings. But it is only early June. Plenty of baseball left to be played, for better or worse.
With a little help from the Pirates.
I can’t really blame Spaghetti (despite the meatball that led to the GS) because two good offenses were beating on each other all night. He didn’t outduel Skenes, but instead saw both himself and Skenes record mediocre outings. That’s still a feather in his cap IMO- “Skenes didn’t beat me”.
This was definitely one of the best and most improbable wins in recent memory. We’ve had 4-5 of those types of games this season, pretty wild if you look at our record.
Spaghetti pretty much proved something that has been a pattern for him: ineffectiveness vs. LHBs, particularly in terms of walking LHBs. His bad inning just got out of control, literally–his control left him after he got into the high pitch count (30’s) for the inning. I believe the grand slam happened because he was afraid to walk in a run. He threw a dead fish fastball to get the ball in the zone. Unfortunately, there are worse things than walking in a run, which he found out.
Yeah, that is part of why I can’t blame him. We have had so many issues with pitchers walking the 8 or 9 hitter, I don’t blame Arrighetti for trying to buck the trend. He just located poorly and offered up a cookie. In a sense I’d rather our pitchers tried to get the in zone swing and miss on 7-9 hitters over walking 6+ batters per game.
I have to wonder how much Arrighetti’s ceiling could raise if he had a better out pitch for lefties.