When your ace pitcher can’t throw strikes, your set-up man can’t keep the ball in the park, and your lineup only has three legitimate first-string bats, it’s not hard to figure out why the Astros lost this game and got swept in this series.
And when a shallow lineup blows opportunities? You can’t keep stranding runners on third base with no outs and expect to win very many games. In the second inning of this game, that’s exactly what happened. It’s the story of this sorry series.
Meanwhile, a leadoff walk in the third inning by Astros starter Hunter Brown resulted in the Orioles’ first run, following a wild pitch and an RBI single by Gunnar Henderson. But that was just the beginning of the action. A single by Dylan Beavers put Henderson on third base, but Beavers was caught stealing at second for out two. Pete Alonso then walked. And on a successful double steal, Henderson scored the Orioles’ second run.
In the Astros’ third, back-to-back doubles by Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez netted the Stros’ first run. Those two doubles equalled the total number of extra-base hits produced by the Astros in this series up to this point. However, the Astros again stranded a runner in scoring position with no outs, leaving the Orioles with a 2-1 lead.
Following the trend set since his return from IL, Brown’s lack of control got the best of him in the fourth inning. Two walks and a hit by pitch loaded the bases for the O’s. With two outs, Leody Taveras blooped a two-run single to give the Orioles a 4-1 lead.
In his last start, Brown equalled his career walk total with five. Today he set a dubious new record, walking six while hitting two batters. He threw only 45 strikes out of 92 pitches, allowing three hits with four Ks.
The Orioles increased their lead in the fifth against another fallen former pillar of the Astros’ pitching staff. Bryan King relieved Brown in the fourth, and in the fifth inning, he gave up a solo homer to Coby Mayo. King has now allowed home runs in four straight appearances. King’s meltdowns are largely responsible for the Astros’ losses in the previous two games.
Jose Altuve gave the quiet crowd at Daikin Park something to cheer about in the eighth inning with a solo shot to the Crawford Boxes. His 12th homer whittled the Os’ lead down to 5-2. It was about the only thing the Astros fans had to cheer about this Sunday, as the Astros have lost their fourth straight game and playoff hopes become ever dimmer.
Kai Wei Teng and Cristian Javier held the Orioles for the last three innings, but the offense managed only five hits and was 1-6 with runners in scoring position. The Astros can ill afford to lose players like Jeremy Pena and Christian Walker, who were both out with minor injuries suffered yesterday.
This seems to be the inevitable decline of a team that hasn’t promoted an impact prospect since 2022 and doesn’t seem to have any in the pipeline. Are we still talking about buying at the trade deadline? I say time to start talking about selling.
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If DB really wanted to keep his job, he is going to Crane’s office and laying the ground work for firing Espada and trading Pena for starting pitching and whatever prospects Okert and Vazquez can get you. We aren’t going to buy and sell but if you look at teams like Washington, Pittsburgh, and Miami. This is exactly what they are doing. We are not talented enough to do anything different ether. You can still go get your Colorado LF if you would like and try to trip into the post season. But serious buying is not the answer.
I suspect Brown is walking into Crane’s office and telling him exactly what he wants to hear. I’m getting Purpura and McLane vibes.
We were not talented enough 4 years ago.
When does the team make their decision on standing still or slightly selling? Whatever it will be, it will be less than a retool.
“The Astros won 106 games and the World Series in ’22, then fired their GM, AGM, hired a scout to get back to “real baseball”, and saw the leaders of their analytics department make lateral moves to smarter organizations.
4 years later, they are the 24th or 25th best team in MLB.”
(MikemitchNH)
Sometimes things don’t go your way. That’s the randomness of baseball. But throughout the Orioles series, the Astros have not played smart. It’s nothing to do with randomness, but a pattern of not playing smart baseball. Prime examples: the 10th and 11th inning of Saturday’s game and the Astros’ allowing the Orioles to score the winning run while they argued with the umpire over an ill-advised throw to 2d base on Sunday. This reminds me of the way the Angels would lose games over the last few years.
As was discussed on the gamethreads, this has to be one of the worst home series played in the past four years. Certainly in the top five.
We “should” have won two of three in the traditional sense of “should”. But not winning on Saturday required a level of incompetence that shouldn’t ever occur on a major league team. Luck actually favored us many times late in the first two games and the team still managed to lose.
Losses like Saturday’s late into a season can really destroy morale, and what I watched on Sunday definitely seemed to suggest that. I don’t think Espada has the clubhouse right now, considering they played like this after a long ASB.