April 23, 2016
Astros 8, Red Sox 3
W – Fiers (2-1)
L – Buchholz (0-2)
Losing streak: over.
Colby:
Jacked.
Saturday’s game could have had a very different feel to it if the team’s struggles had continued, but the bats came through in the clutch and the pitching held up for the most part. The Astros pulled out of their four-game skid and topped the Red Sox 8-3.
Mike Fiers pitched a pretty effective game through his first five innings. After some trouble in the 1st (including his own error on a pickoff attempt, which ultimately helped the Sox push a run across), he settled down nicely and had retired 15 of 16 batters going into the 6th. This is where he seemingly ran into a wall, unable to get hitters to bit on pitches out of the zone. When the Sox loaded the bases with one out, Fiers got the thumb. Will Harris came in and limited the damage to just a sac fly.
Prior to that, the Astros had tied the game in the 2nd when Jason Castro provided an RBI groundout with runners at 2nd and 3rd. The real fireworks came in the bottom of the 5th inning when a Valbuena walk, Springer single, and Correa HBP loaded the bases with two outs. After working a 2-0 count, Rasmus whiffed on the first two breaking pitches he saw and was sitting fastball. Just so happened that a 2-2 fastball was exactly what Buchholz had dialed up. A few seconds later the ball was in the seats behind the Astros dugout in right-center and Houston had a commanding lead in the game. The slam was Rasmus’s 6th dinger on the year which leads the club and ties him for the AL lead.
The Red Sox were able to scratch out a run on Ken Giles in the 8th, but the Astros added three just-because runs on three RBI doubles (one by Rasmus) in the bottom of the same inning.
The continuing wear and tear on the bullpen is still cause for concern, and at some point the starters are going to have to start going deeper into games. Tonight, we’ll just be happy with a win.