Houston 8, Boston 1
W: McHugh (6-9)
L: Kelly (2-3)
Submitted by Reuben
Field the ball. Throw the ball. Step on the base. Wait. Oh crap. Wrong order.
A trying rookie year for projected-Hall-of-Famer Xander Bogaerts had another hiccup Sunday afternoon, as his slightly-out-of-sequence double play attempt ended up opening the door for a huge inning by the Astros.
Actually, there were 3 goats in that inning for the Red Sox: new LF Yoenis Cespedes, new Starting Pitcher Joe Kelly, and Bogaerts. After Fowler led off with a line-drive single to center, Kelly walked Singleton – one of 6 walks he issued in his 4 innings. Corporan singled to load the bases. Then came a completely inane effort by Cespedes to catch Krauss’s high fly ball that ultimately landed, untouched, on the warning track in front of the Green monster for a “single”. After a Dominguez sac fly, things were looking promising for the Astros, with a 2-0 lead, two men on, and a pitcher on the ropes with still only one out.
That promise momentarily turned to disappointment as Marwin hit an easy DP grounder towards Bogaerts, who took it to the bag himself and easily threw out Marwin at 1st. However, Geoff Blum knew right away that the SS had gotten rid of the ball before stepping on the 2nd-base bag, and more importantly, Bo Porter knew it too. After some on-field confusion among the umpires and Sox manager John Farrell about whether or not a fielder actually has to touch a base to execute a force-out, the play was reviewed and overturned, allowing the inning to continue and Robbie Grossman to bat.
Grossman had an excellent at-bat, fouling off 3 full-count pitches (rather than watching the borderline ones and hoping they’re called balls, as he is wont to do) before finally drawing a walk on the 9th pitch of the AB. That brought up Altuve, who promptly rocked a 1-0 pitch on an ascending line right into the Monster seats for a rather stunning Grand Slam and 6-0 lead. Unofficially, the ball traveled a distance of about 74 Altuves.
The rest of the game was, while not exactly routine – thanks to McHugh’s struggles with his control – at least fairly free of tension. The only additional scoring on either side came from solo homers by Fowler in the 3rd and Singleton in the 9th, and Sipp, Folty, and Qualls tossed uneventful scoreless innings to wrap it up. Jose Altuve had 4 hits and is now batting .339 with a .374 OBP and .447 SLG. It’s a testament to the immense struggles by the middle of the Astros’ order this year that Altuve has only scored 67 Runs (14th in the league) despite being 1st in the league in Hits and Steals, 7th in OBP, and 2nd in Doubles.
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Futility Watch: The Astros remain one of the 28-best teams in baseball. Their win today means that, even if they lose the final 37 games of the season, they will have improved from last year.