There is no point. There is nothing for which to hope. The Astros are bobbing in the ocean, clinging to an inflatable raft. Help is on the way! one cries out. I see a light! another exclaims. Hope begins to build. A vessel doth approach carrying with it the promise of rescue. Alas! it is but the Rangers. And what do they do? The Rangers use a gas station pocket knife to burst the raft and speed off into the distance searching for meth.
The Astros lose in 12 innings, 4-3.
Rougned Odor, who hit the go-ahead homer in the 12th:
I always like to play against the Astros. I like to hit in this ballpark. I just like it. I feel really comfortable here.
The dumbest part of the game was in the 7th when a hard-hit Tony Kemp ball skipped over the wall for a ground-rule double. Another couple of inches and the ball would have hit the top of the wall and bounced back in. Because it's the Astros, however, the ground-rule double meant Rasmus had to hold at 3rd and the Astros had to settle for one run instead of two, which would have tied the game. Everything is bad.
Springer, Bregman, Correa, Altuve: 0x18, 6K:3BB.
*Altuve, prior to last night's game:
...They had our number in the past, but this is a new series, and we're going to start over. We're going to take everything out of our minds and we're going to go there brand-new like this is the first game of the season. We're going to go out there and win.
*The Rangers are 14-3 against the Astros this season. Since trading for Cole Hamels on July 31, 2015 the records are as such:
Texas: 126-81
Houston: 103-99
Head-to-Head the Rangers are 22-5 against the Astros since acquiring Hamels.
*The Astros are now 3.5 GB of the WC2 with the Orioles, Tigers, Yankees, and Mariners between them and the postseason. FanGraphs puts it at 7.6%.
*Dallas Keuchel won't even start playing catch until Wednesday at the earliest. At this point Dallas Keuchel is the plane you know is going to get delayed until morning, but the gate attendant keeps telling you that it'll be "another 30 minutes" for five hours in a row. McCullers may be closer to returning, but who the hell knows. Hinch:
They're not doing enough to be ruled in or out. McCullers is the closest guy, but you can play catch all you want - until you get on the mound, it's when you really get serious about pitching. Keuchel's not throwing yet, so there's certainly some concern on both of theirs for different reasons...
*The Astros agreed to a $5.15m deal with Cuban LHP Cionel Perez. And they will have some severe taxes and restrictions because of their international deals this season. Perez's deal will actually cost the Astros just over $10m.
*The Life and Death of the Bakersfield Blaze
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
