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It's been pretty bad for the Astros during their recent skid, as they had gone a miserable 2-8 in their last ten games coming into tonight's play. Blue Jays fans have had it even worse, losing nine of their last ten games. If you'd like to see how bad 1-9 in ten games looks like in a cool way, check out The Crawfish Boxes' Ryan Dunsmore's graphic from the preview of tonight's game. Props to him for the awesome work.
A visit by Houston was just what the doctor ordered for Toronto. The Astros hung tough, but no offense and a bad bullpen won't win you many games.
Erik Bedard was great once again for the Astros. Coming off his 6.1 no-hit innings on Saturday, Bedard allowed one run on three hits, while striking out six in five innings. Bedard's undoing in his last outing was his five walks, but on Thursday he issued only one free pass. The problem was that he followed that walk, to Jose Bautista, by allowing a two-out RBI double to Edwin Encarnacion to give Toronto a 1-0 lead. Bedard is making himself valuable as a trade chip for Houston as he has not allowed more than four earned runs in his last eight starts. He has a 3.06 ERA over that span.
As Bedard's trade value continues to rise, Lucas Harrell's continues to plummet.
Harrell got through a clean sixth inning before reverting back to his old ways by walking Bautista and Encarnacion to start the seventh inning. Toronto's Adam Lind followed the walks with a RBI double, and Macier Izturis knocked in Lind and Encarnacion with a two-run single to make it 4-0, still with no outs in the seventh.
Harrell got a strike 'em out, throw 'em out plus a lineout to end the seventh and worked a scoreless eighth. Have to look at the bright side sometimes.
As for the Houston offense - a Justin Maxwell single and a J.D. Martinez double, and that was it against Mark Buehrle. Yes, the same Mark Buehrle that had allowed 19 hits and 11 runs in his last 13 innings coming into today's game.
The Astros will go with Jordan Lyles against Toronto's R.A. Dickey on Friday night at the Rogers Centre.