Astros 8, Rangers 3: Astros run Darvish early for the win

Yu Darvish has owned the Astros at Minute Maid Park. In three starts before Saturday, Darvish was 3-0 with a 1.52 ERA. He was just one out away from a perfect game early in 2013 (Thanks again Marwin for breaking that up). Even with this track record, Darvish had to scrap and claw for every at-bat today. His fastball was simply not getting over the plate, and Yu had to relay on his breaking stuff far too much to induce outs.

Robbie Grossman set the tone with a 11-pitch walk to lead off the game for the Astros offense Saturday. Houston turned two walks and two singles into two-run lead off for the Astros. Darvish used forty pitches to get out of the inning, and had 100 pitches by the time the fifth had come around. Houston ran up five straight batters before Darvish was pulled and three more runs were scored. Marwin drove a sixth run for good measure.

The Rangers would put two runs with Jim Adducal's first career home run, and sent Feldman to the showers after he gave up three straight hits in the seventh. The Astros would play add-on for two more runs in the later innings. Jose Fields and Mike Foltynewicz shut the door on the Rangers.

Stars of the night

• Bob Grossman walked twice and scored three times.
• Jon Singleton was 2-for-3 with three RBIs.
• Scott Feldman -  6.1 IP, 3 ER