Well, at least they weren't no-hit.
Astros fans may or may not have acted like they won the AL West when Carlos Corporan took Yu Darvish deep to break up the Texas' righty's no-no in the eighth inning. Darvish could not get his revenge on Houston after losing a perfect game earlier this season with two outs in the ninth inning on a single off the bat of Marwin Gonzalez.
Yes, the same Marwin Gonzalez currently playing AAA ball.
Darvish didn't get his no-no or perfecto by it was still a downright ugly afternoon for the Astros' offense. Houston finished with 15 strikeouts against Darvish in eight innings - one more than Darvish's near-perfect game earlier this year
Darvish finished the first five innings perfectly with 10 strikeouts. But with two outs in the sixth, Jonathan Villar drew a walk despite being down 0-2 in the count earlier in the at-bat. It was the 2-2 pitch that got a huge amount of attention as Villar looked at a Darvish breaking ball that the pitcher and his catcher, A.J. Pierzynski, both thought was strike three.
Instead, two pitches later, Darvish walked Villar and Pierzynski had some words for home plate umpire Ron Kulpa, who proceeded to eject Pierzynski. Was it a strike? Take a look for yourself, courtesy of Deadspin.
Darvish kept the no-hitter intact through the seventh inning, but in the eighth Corporan was able to turn on a first pitch fastball on the outer half of the plate for a solo jack that reached the seats in right field. It was the 19th home run of the year for Astros catchers, which leads the American League. (h/t @Astros)
Joe Nathan came on to close for the Rangers in the ninth, but the Astros didn't have much more success against him as they went down in order.
Lost in the craziness of Darvish was another solid outing from Brett Oberholtzer as he went 6.2 innings, allowing two runs on seven hits while striking out six. Three of those hits came in the first inning as Adrian Beltre and Pierzynski each drove in a run to give the Rangers their two runs.
From there on, Oberholtzer threw extremely well and now has allowed only two runs in his 20.2 innings as a starter for the Astros. Josh Fields and Chia-Jen Lo also combined to throw 2.1 innings of scoreless baseball to keep Houston close.