Astros Make Statement, Beat Rangers 6-5

I just wrote a pretty lengthy story for my newspaper about all those statements, including the home runs, the pitching and the crazy, tackling rundown by Brett Myers to end things. I thought about just re-printing that here, but I'll touch on something else quickly. (P.S. Myers and Snyder both joked that he basically tackled Andrus. Which is exactly what looked like happened.)

Namely, the atmosphere. This game was night-and-day different from Friday night. Fans were into it. They were shouting over the Rangers' fans chants with "Let's Go Astros." They were standing, cheering, going crazy for Brandon Lyon (who didn't suck!) and Brett Myers.

It was very, very different from one day to the next. Were there Rangers fans throughout the ballpark? Yes. Would it have been a sellout without those fans? No. That doesn't take away from what was a very cool gameday feel.

Afterwards, Brad Mills, Brett Myers and Chris Snyder all compared the park to October baseball. Does that mean this rivalry has arrived?

I'm not sure, but I tell you it felt much, much different than any Astros game in a long time. This team is different.

This team is young, they come back, they get two-out hits (I'm looking at you, Escorpion and J.D.) when no one is on base. They get gutsy pitching performances from starters, who set career highs for strikeouts and a season-high for pitches thrown.

In short, this Astros team may be more for real than we anticipated. I don't know if they're good enough to get to .500 or contend for that second wild card spot, but I was certainly checking the standings to see how far out they were. I did not do that once last season. Or the season before that.

More importantly, give credit to Jeff Luhnow for this game. How many of his guys littered this roster? Chris Snyder came up big, Travis Buck had a huge pinch hit, Justin Maxwell played out of his mind. Heck, you could even make a case that Lucas Harrell in the rotation was his idea (even if he didn't sign him). Myers to the bullpen sure was.

Take a bow after this one, Jeff Luhnow. Houston wouldn't have beaten Dallas tonight without you.