Astros Fall to Mets 6-2 on Saturday to Knot Series at 1-1

The Houston Astros started the second game of the series against the New York Mets well, but a tough fifth inning from the mound made a significant impact, with the Mets taking the game by a score of 6-2 and tying the series at 1-1.

Speaking of the mound, after the first few innings, the pitchers had some major struggles, which resulted in the Mets putting runs on the board consistently as the game progressed.

With the loss, the Astros drop to 68-68, but because the Texas Rangers lost as well, Houston still maintains a two-game lead in the AL West.

Looking at the pitchers, the Astros played right-handed pitcher Bennett Sousa to start, and after him, they put in right-handed pitchers Cristian Javier and Enyel De Los Santos, and as the closer, Houston went with right-handed pitcher Kai-Wei Teng.

Starting with Sousa, he did not have the greatest night from the mound as he pitched for 0.2 innings, and in those innings, he allowed one hit, one run, recorded one error, walked two batters, and posted an ERA of 6.52.

Then Javier went in to pitch for 4.1 innings, and in his time on the mound he gave up six hits, three runs, recorded three errors, struck out four batters, and totaled an ERA of 6.45. Following Javier, De Los Santos stepped up to the mound and pitched for two innings, and in that time he allowed one hit, struck out two batters, and tallied an ERA of 4.52.

To finish the game, Teng came in and pitched one inning, which saw him allow three hits, two runs, record two errors, and post an ERA of 4.42.

Overall in the second game of the series, the Astros did a decent job from the mound, but the struggles that Javier had in third inning and that Teng had in the eighth inning proved to be too much to overcome.

Now looking at the scoring, the Astros were held to just two runs for the entire game which was not nearly enough with Mets totaling six runs.

Starting in the first inning, designated hitter Yordan Alvarez hit a sacrifice fly to bring Jeremy Pena home to give the Astros a 1-0 lead. With that sacrifice fly, Alvarez got to 92 RBIs for the season, but he was not done just yet.

Later in the first inning, the Mets responded as Jared Young singled right which allowed Francisco Lindor to score and got Carson Benge to second base.

Then a few scoreless innings went by before the fifth inning, when Juan Soto singled right to bring Lindor home and put the Mets up 2-1. Later on in the fifth inning, Young tripled to the right, which allowed Soto and Benge to score and extended the Mets' lead to 4-1.

In the eighth inning the Astros were able to cut into the lead a little bit as Alavrez homered to right center field to trim the New York lead to 4-2.

With that home run, Alvarez now has 37 home runs for the season, which extends his lead in the American League, and it also gives him 93 RBIs for the season, and gives him more separation in his lead in RBIs for the American League in his chase for the Triple Crown. Additionally, this performance helped Alvarez increase his batting average to .320, which leads the entire MLB.

Now getting back to the scoring, the Mets added two more runs in the eighth inning as Francisco Alvarez doubled left which allowed Marcus Semien and Young to score. 

In the ninth inning, both teams were unable to get anything going, which resulted in the Mets taking the game 6-2 and tying the series at 1-1.

Looking at this game on the scoring side, the Mets were able to score a lot more consistently than the Astros, which was a major reason why the series is now tied and will be decided later this afternoon.

In the series finale, the pitching will be key, and on that note, the pitching matchup will be between right-handed pitcher Ethan Pecko for the Astros and left-handed pitcher Zac Thornton for the Mets.

As Pecko and Thornton take the mound, it will be interesting to see how they perform and if one of them can significantly limit opposing batters from the plate that will very likely play a key role in this game and potentially could determine the series.

So, heading into this game, it will be intriguing to watch how Pecko and Thornton play at the mound as well as which batters can find success from the plate to determine who will take the series and build momentum in the final stretch of the regular season.