April 15, 2016
Astros 1, Tigers 0
W – Keuchel (2-1)
L – Pelfrey (0-2)
S – Gregerson (3)
With their recent luck and poor play, the Astros probably would have lost tonight’s game – or at least gone to extras – with anything less than a stellar pitching performance from Dallas Keuchel. Fortunately, that’s exactly what they got: eight scoreless innings from the ace and no legitimate offensive threat from the Tigers for pretty much the entire night. Houston notched a run early and held on by their fingernails to win 1-0.
It didn’t have to be that way though. The Astros had Mike Pelfrey on the ropes for the first three innings but weren’t able to make the game uninteresting. With two on and one out in the first, Colby Rasmus drove in George Springer from second, then Tyler White walked to load the bases. These runners would subsequently be stranded as Evan Gattis struck out and Carlos Gomez ended the inning on a grounder to third. The Astros loaded the bases again in the 2nd – this time with no one out – and were again unable to push anyone across, this time thanks to a Springer foul-tip K and a Carlos Correa GIDP. The Astros would add two more inning-ending double-plays in the 3rd and 5th innings and stranded Jason Castro at third in the 4th. The bats went silent after that.
Keuchel was dealing all night, scattering five hits and a walk over eight innings and at one point retiring 11 Tigers in a row from the 3rd inning into the 7th. He also worked efficiently, sitting at around 60 pitches going into the 6th inning. He had to work harder after Miguel Cabrera worked a ten-pitch at-bat to close out the 6th, finally punching him out on a beautiful low slider. Gregerson only threw five pitches in the 9th to nail down the save.
Tonight’s sign of the baseball apocalypse: Jason Castro went 2×3 and swiped a base, giving him a higher batting average (.185) and more stolen bases (1) than Carlos Gomez (.184, 0). Awesome.