The Houston Astros won their second game of this Postseason on Thusday night, beating the Kansas City Royals 5-2 at Kauffman Stadium to take a 1-0 lead in their AL Division Series matchup.
The Astros struck early against Yordano Ventura, plating two runs in the first inning. The first three Houston hitters of the night all reached base – Jose Altuve on a single, George Springer on a walk, and Carlos Correa on a second single. Altuve and Springer then scored on ground outs by Colby Rasmus and Evan Gattis, staking Collin McHugh to an early 2-0 lead.
That lead would soon be increased to 3-0 after Altuve singled Jake Marisnick home in the second inning, but the Royals weren’t going to take this lying down. To lead off the bottom of the second, Kendrys Morales homered off of McHugh to cut the lead to 3-1. Then, the rain started in earnest, leading to a 47 minute rain delay.
Coming out of the delay, Ned Yost replaced Ventura with Chris Young. It was the right decision, because this just wasn’t Ventura’s night. In two innings, he allowed three runs on four hits, walking one and striking out two. Furthermore, he threw 42 pitches in those two innings, and his night likely would have been a short one even if the rain never came.
Young did his part to prevent the Royals from getting blown out of the water, and he also helped preserve some members of their bullpen. In four innings on the mound, the veteran allowed one run on three hits, walking two and punching out seven. The only damage he allowed was a solo homer by Springer in the fifth, negating Morales’ second homer of the night in the fourth off of McHugh.
And then, the Royals offense parked it for the night. The team put two men on with one out in the fifth, and got nothing out of it. They went 1-2-3 in the sixth and seventh, and collected a pair of singles with two outs in the eighth before Oliver Perez got Eric Hosmer to pop up to end the inning. In the ninth, Luke Gregerson plunked Mike Moustakas with one out, but struck out Sal Perez and got Alex Gordon to fly out to end the game. Houston tacked on an unnecessary insurance run in the eighth thanks to a long solo homer by Rasmus, his second in as many games.
McHugh wasn’t all that sharp for the Astros, but he got the job done – and considering that he came back to the mound after the rain delay, Houston can’t complain all that much. In six innings, McHugh gave up two runs (both coming on the Morales homers) on four hits, walking one and striking out one.
Houston’s offense pounded out 11 hits on the night, but they only had one non-homer extra base hit among those 11 hits. The team went just 2/10 with runners in scoring position, but they were creating plenty of chaos in the early innings, leading to a number of run scoring opportunities. Altuve finished his night by going 3/5 with a run and an RBI, while Springer went 2/4 with two runs, a walk, and that solo homer. Rasmus once again showed up too, going 1/3 with the eighth inning solo homer, a walk, and another RBI on the evening.
Kansas City’s offense didn’t show up on Thursday. They tallied just six hits, and the only two extra base hits were the pair of homers by Morales. McHugh and rest of the Astros pitchers gave the Royals just two free baserunners on the evening (one walk, one HBP). Houston’s defense didn’t make an error. If you have no one on base, you can’t create havoc – and causing havoc is where the Royals thrived last season.
Game 2 is on Friday at 3:45 PM, and the Astros will send Scott Kazmir to the hill against the Royals’ Johnny Cueto. Getting one game in Kansas City was huge for the Astros. But possibly getting two, with Dallas Keuchel starting at home on Sunday? The Royals need to prevent that from happening, or their defense of the AL pennant could look much more difficult.
