After a brutal loss in the series finale against the San Diego Padres, the Houston Astros were able to bounce back and start the series against the San Francisco Giants 1-0 with a win on Monday night.
The Houston Astros needed to rebound quickly after losing the series finale to the San Diego Padres on Sunday evening. After defeating the San Francisco Giants 6-3 in the 10th inning on Monday night, it seems the Astros were able to do just that.
At this point in the season, the standings are very tight which means that every game is critical, and for the Astros that is especially the case with the lead in the AL West being very tight.
Right now, Houston is No. 1 in the AL West, but has just a 0.5-game lead over the Texas Rangers and a 4.5-game lead over the Seattle Mariners. If the Astros do want to win this divison, they must play consistently and continue to win just like they did on Monday.
Speaking of the win last night, it is time to recap it and see what put Houston in a position to have success.
Starting with the pitching, the Astros started the game with Hayden Wesneski, who had an up-and-down night. In the seven innings he pitched, he allowed three runs, with two of those runs being home runs, but he was able to add four strikeouts against the 27 batters he faced.
In terms of pitching depth, Houston got great performances from Steven Okert and Josh Hader, who combined for three strikeouts and allowed just one hit in the final three innings, which gave the Astros the chance to win the game on offense.
On the scoring side, Jose Altuve got it going in the first inning as he was able to hit a sacrifice fly, which brought designated hitter Yordan Alvarez home to give the Astros a 1-0 lead. After that, the Giants added two runs in the fourth and fifth innings before Cam Smith hit a home run and knotted the game at 2-2 in the seventh inning.
Then, the Giants hit a homer in the seventh inning, which was followed by a Smith single hit which brought Nick Allen and now tied the game at 3-3.
Once the game got to the 10th inning, it was all Astros as Jeremy Pena singled to the left and brought Smith home. Following the Astros taking a 4-3 lead, Isaac Paredes hit a double to the left, which brought Pena and Lamonte Wade Jr. home and extended the lead to 6-3, which the Giants could not climb back from.
To clinch the game, Hader got one strikeout and Houston grounded out the final two outs, which gave the Astros a 1-0 lead in the series.
Heading into the second game of the series tonight, it will be interesting to see if Houston can string together back to back wins to clinch the series early, or if the Giants will respond and tie it at 1-1.
The pitching matchup for tonight will be Hunter Brown (overall record of 3-1) of the Astros against Carson Whisenhunt (overall record of 2-3) for the Giants.
With Brown having solid success so far this season, this is a great opportunity for him to go out and help Houston start another win streak by shutting down the Giants' offense. For Whisenhunt, his ability to change up his pitches and keep the Astros guessing could help him to find success and limit Houston's ability to score multiple runs.
Whether the Astros or the Giants win this game may very well come down to the pitching battle between Brown and Whisenhunt, so that will be very interesting to watch as the game progresses.
On the offensive side, the Astros will be hoping they can replicate what they did last night with a solid effort from the entire team. However, Alvarez does need to make a major impact on this game to ensure that he maintains his position near the top of the MLB in batting average and so he can still give himself a chance to win the American League MVP award.
If Alvarez can step up and the rest of the team is able to get going, the Astros should be in prime position to go up 2-0 in this series and potentially finish the Giants with a 3-0 sweep on Wednesday.
