After an embarrassing loss in the opener in this series, the Houston Astros came back on Wednesday and dominated the Colorado Rockies, winning 4-0 and knotting the series up at one game each.
After hitting his first home run in an Astros uniform yesterday and giving them their only run of the game, Jesús Sánchez got the Astros on the board first in this game.
After Yordan’s third walk in his last five at-bats put him on base in the bottom of the first, a passed ball and clutch two-out hit from Sánchez quickly got the Astros on the board in this one.
They added on to that lead in the seventh off the bat of Cam Smith, who smacked his first home run since June 28th, to give Houston a 2-0 lead heading into the eighth.
This lead was even further extended to 4-0 after Yordan sent a 1-1 changeup over the centerfield wall, with Peña standing on first, for his first home run in just his second game back and his first bomb since the end of April.
This offense was a help for Astros starter Framber Valdez, who had his most productive outing so far this month. After allowing at least four runs in each of his four starts this month, amounting to a 7.00+ ERA, Framber settled down today and was back to his regular self on the mound.
Framber Valdez’s final line:
7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K, 99-63 TP-S
Following Valdez, Bryan King and Bryan Abreu came out of the pen to close out the game, giving the Astros an inning of scoreless baseball each, to complete the shutout and secure the 4-0 win.
This win comes in a huge spot after the Seattle Mariners beat the San Diego Padres earlier today. This means that the Astros will stay 1.5 games up on Seattle in the race for the AL West crown.
The Astros will finish up the series tomorrow with one last game against the Rockies starting at 1:10.