On a day that saw newly acquired Astros outfielder Daulton Varsho swap places with Spencer Arrighetti in a one-for-one trade, the Astros bats went quiet, dropping the opener to the Blue Jays 3-1.
Just a few hours after getting to the ballpark with the Jays and beginning to get his pregame work in the visitor cage, Varsho had to make his way over to his new home cage and finish warming up, now facing off against Shane Bieber instead of Cristian Javier.
And low and behold, the first batter of the game tested his old teammate, with the first out of the game coming on a popout to Varsho in center. He ended his first game as an Astro on a good note, going 1-4 with a single and a walk.
But the majority of the game went in the way of the Blue Jays, despite the Astros outhitting them 10 to seven.
A leadoff homer in the second got the Jays on the board first, and they never gave it away, adding on another two in the fourth to take a 3-0 lead.
The Astros didn’t get on the board until the sixth on a Jeremy Peña RBI-single, right before the Astros left the bases loaded, bringing their total of runners left on into the double-digits, ending the game with 13 men left on.
And the pitching was strong today. The bats just couldn’t make up for it. Not only did we see a quality start from Javier, but we got to see a new face….. for the pen.
Cristian Javier’s final line:
6 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 0 BB, 2 K, 85-58 TP-Strikes
Despite a good line, Javier left down 3-1 and gave way for the newest arm in the pen: Tatsuya Imai. With just nine relief appearances in his nine years in Japan, Imai was moved there after a rough start to the year. And maybe it could work.
Coming in relief for Javier, Imai finished the game for the Astros, throwing three innings of perfect ball, including ending his outing with five-straight strikeouts.
With the Rangers loss to the Giants, Houston remains 2.5 games up in the AL West. They will look to extend that further with the next game of the series against the Jays, starting at 7:10 CT.
I’ll go off topic with my apologies. There are many ways to describe Arrighetti, how about this one, 26 years old, “Pitcher of the month” two months ago, and three years of team control. Do you trade him for a rental, glove first outfielder?
We traded from a surplus. With Pecko and now Mayer in AAA, we are about to have a lot jam of a lot of the same type of pitchers. Should we have gotten more than a Varsho??? Just last year we wouldn’t give up Spencer for Cease at the deadline. One would had hoped for more for the controlling years.
Exactly my point. We gave too much for Kikuchi too and to the same Jays.
Varsho’s numbers are pedestrian. Kikuchi’s numbers with the Jays were unimpressive (4.75 ERA).
Dana loves trading with the Jays for sure. One thing is for sure, he is gone for sure. Time to bring someone in that knows how to negotiate a trade. Because Dana, he is not Him.
Dana is a scout. That’s a problem. He is learning to be a GM from Crane. That’s a bigger problem.
Everybody was looking for pitching, right? How many teams were looking for defense first CF rentals?
“Quick Grade: A. Turning two months of Varsho into a starting pitcher with three-years of control left is pretty good. If Walker (Jays pitching coach) can help him find the strike zone more, it would be a great trade.”
Blue Jays opinion.