ASTROS LOSE AGAIN AFTER ANOTHER FIRST INNING PITCHING MELTDOWN
It’s deja vu all over again.
For the last three games, the Astros have been forced to use their minor league-quality starters, and for the third straight game, the game was effectively over in the first inning.
On Sunday, Hunter Brown surrendered three first-inning runs en route to a 6-0 Nats win. On Tuesday night, J.P. France gave up five runs, putting the Astros in a hole leading to a 7-2 loss to the Cubs.
Tonight, in his third career start, Spencer Arrighetti spotted the Cubs four runs in the first, most of which came from a Dansby Swanson homer, much like the two homers that doomed France the night before.
And like Brown, Arrighetti managed to find a groove after the first innings, getting through an additional 2.2 innings without allowing a run.
But let’s not lay all the blame on the pitching. In at least one of these last three games the Astros bats should have been able to overcome the early deficit. Especially tonight. In the last three games, the Astros have managed only five runs.
The Astros did manage to cut the Cubs' early lead in half in the third inning on a Jake Meyers sacrifice bunt and an Alex Bregman RBI single.
After that, wasted opportunity after wasted opportunity.
An Altuve homer in the ninth cut the Cubs lead to one, but Bregman, Yordan Alvarez, and Kyle Tucker went down quietly with the win within grasp.
The Astros’ offensive problem was a familiar one: failure in the clutch. The Astros were 1-10 with runners in scoring position and left 10 runners on base.
One bright spot was the effectiveness of the bullpen. Shawn Dubin looked impressive, eating 2.1 innings and allowing no baserunners with three strikeouts. Rafael Montero continues to erase his name from the s*** list with another scoreless inning. And Ryan Pressly finally had a clean inning, striking out two, with precise command of sharp breaking stuff.
But with each loss, the irrelevance of good individual performances becomes clearer. Right now, the Astros are about the worst team in baseball, and their chances for their accustomed spot in the playoffs become increasingly remote.
2024-04-25T03:03:02Z dg43tfdfdgfd