Valdez’ shakiness continued in the top of the 3rd when Fernando Tatis, Jr. bounced a ball inside the 1st base bag for an apparent double. But, young and inexperienced Cam Smith out in right field took a nonchalant approach and felt embarrassment when he let the ball skip and bounce and roll all the way to the wall. Tatis, Jr. flew into 3rd with an easy triple and promptly scored on a single into right.
Dylan Cease cruised through the first two innings but allowed singles to Meyers and Altuve in the bottom of the 3rd that brought up Isaac Paredes with a chance to get a 2-out hit. After a passed ball allowed Altuve to advance to second, Cease bounced a 3-2 pitch off the plate that Paredes could not resist. Each team has now stranded runners on 2nd and 3rd.
Framber Valdez is taking on the look of a lucky man. After giving up another hit in the top of the 4th, he gave up a hard hit line drive by Jose Iglesias that was smashed right to Mauricio Dubon. Yuli Gurriel was then easily doubled up off of 1st.
Third straight inning ending double play, and that’s after the Astros messed up the opportunity in the top of the 1st.
The 7-8-9 hitters came up for the Astros in the bottom of the 5th and Dylan Cease couldn’t get any of them out. Meyers slapped a double to left, Cam Smith then poked a single into right, and then the .154-hitting Dubon (4-26 this season) looped a ball into shallow center that Jose Iglesias chased but had tick off his glove for an RBI single.
After striking out Altuve, Cease melted down with a 4-pitch walk to the .234-hitting Isaac Paredes. And with that, the crowd rose in anticipation of Yordan Alvarez doing some damage, and of course he didn’t let them down. His sacrifice fly to right tied the game and denied me a win on under 4 -120 that I probably didn’t deserve anyway.
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