More on that in a second. George Springer tied Craig Biggio's franchise mark with his 8th leadoff homer of the season, Teoscar Hernandez hit a 2-run shot, and Joe Musgrove threw 6.1IP, 5H/3ER, 7K:2BB, throwing 79 of his 106 pitches for strikes.
*Hinch, on playing the Rangers:
I want to see them again. If we see them again, it means we're meeting in October, so bring it. I hope we're there.
*Marwin Gonzalez played three infield positions and smoked a two-run single to clinch the victory. Hinch:
He's been stuck at first base quite a bit, but that doesn't speak to his versatility. When something happens, Marwin can fill in admirably.
Hinch had to negate the DH role when Yulieski Gurriel switched from DH to 3B in the 8th. Hinch:
I didn't have a lot of options. We had players going down left and right. I wanted to put our best defense in when we had the lead.
*Altuve left with oblique discomfort and one inning later Bregman was pulled after grabbing at his hamstring. Hinch:
They're getting looked at, getting all the tests. They're going to have a full evaluation before we know anything. I'm not optimistic about Friday for either one of them.
So just to recap the injury situation since July 27, here's who has missed time with injuries:
Dallas Keuchel, Lance McCullers, Luke Gregerson, Luis Valbuena, now Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman. Two starting pitchers and three key position players.
*Wild Card update: The Astros are 3.5 GB of WC2 with the Tigers, Mariners, and Yankees between them and the Blue Jays. There are 16 games left. If the Astros go 12-4 over their last 16 games it means the following would need to happen to get into the postseason:
Blue Jays: 8-9
Tigers: 9-8
Mariners: 9-7
Yankees: 10-7
The Astros begin a series at Seattle on Friday, with Seattle riding an 8-game winning streak.
FanGraphs: 6.3%
FiveThirtyEight: 8%
*24 of the first 33 games in 2017 will be against AL West teams. Check the schedule here. To be honest, I don't even want to look at Friday's schedule, much less 2017. They'll close out 2017 with three games at Grapevine Mills and four games at Boston.
*Lourdes Gurriel told reporters following his showcase in Panama that he would love to play with his brother Yulieski. And we would love to watch that. Lourdes Gurriel:
I've always thought of (the possibility) to play with my brothers from the beginning. He's in the big leagues and I can do it, too. Why not? It's a goal of mine to be up there with him.
Open that checkbook, Jim!
*A "fan" apparently threw a lime at Carlos Gomez as Tuesday night's game ended. When Gomez gestured towards the fan, they threw a baseball. Gomez:
I thought it was a golf ball. It was a lime. They were screaming at me the whole game in really offensive language, but I didn't even look at them. You can talk, but when you try to injure me, it's not fun.
Between lime/baseball throwing and drunk angry truth-telling Astros fan, Tuesday night wasn't a good night for Astros supporters.
*San Antonio's mayor shelved a plan to bring Triple-A baseball to the city by 2019.
*Boston Globe: Bill James and the inside-baseball explanation for the rise of Donald Trump.
*The hypocrisy of Tony LaRussa
*The hypocrisy of Tony LaRussa
