Roundup of the Yankees Rivalry: The Astros’ troubles in Chicago
The Yankees and Athletics concluded their series on Thursday night, and not in a particularly impressive way. In the first inning, they had the bases loaded with nobody out, but they wasted the opportunity. That turned out to be a recurring theme as the Yankees lost to Oakland 3-1 and left a number of baserunners stranded. Aside from that, things in baseball were a little calm today. The Yanks and A’s ended up being the last teams playing, even though the other nine games took place in the Eastern time zone. Even though it wasn’t the busiest of days, let’s recap what did happen with some significant AL opponents.
Houston Astros (7-19) 3, Chicago Cubs (16-9) 1. The Cubs held the Astros to only one run on four hits, extending their losing streak. Houston opened the game with two singles and a run scored on a sacrifice fly by Yordan Alvarez, so things weren’t too bad for them. But in the end, that constituted the bulk of their offensive for the day. After that, Cubs starter Javier Assad gave up just two more singles and a walk in 5.2 scoreless innings. Although Houston’s Justin Verlander did not give up a run, Chicago managed to get him to walk four times, increasing the pitch count until he was struck out in the (still scoreless) fifth inning.
The breakout player of the day for the Cubs offense was rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong, who entered the game as a replacement for Cody Bellinger after the masher was placed on the injured list. After going 0-for-14 in his coffee cup last year, Crow-Armstrong was still waiting for his first Major League hit. That one, off Bryan Abreu, proved to be a significant one. In the sixth inning, Chicago led 3-1 thanks to a two-run home drive. The Cubs bullpen closed out the final 3.1 innings with no hits given up and only one walk, which made all the difference. The Astros’ current 55-year low for a start is much more appalling than their multi-year collapse in the early 2010s.
GTexas Rangers (13-13) 4, Seattle Mariners (13-12) 3. Even though the Rangers outhit and outwalked the Mariners, they ultimately lost to Seattle by just one run because they left six runners on base.Ty France’s two-run home run gave the Marinevrs the lead after they scored two runs off of former Yankee Andrew Heaney. After Texas knotted the game with one run each in the first and fourth, Luis Urías hit a two-run home run for Seattle in the fifth inning.