Astros 6, Mariners 2: Bullpen Solid In Salvaging Last Game of Series

What Happened

The Astros avoided the sweep today winning in a brisk 3 hours and 24 minutes.  Vincent Velasquez got the start today.  He took the mound with a 1-0 lead courtesy of an Evan Gattis RBI single in the first inning.  The M's batters were patient, and were able to foul off pitches at an amazing rate.  Logan Morrison started the inning with an 11-pitch walk.  Mark Trumbo followed that with a 9-pitch popup.  Velasquez ended up giving up three walks and a single, but limited the damage to just one run.  Problem was it took him 43 pitches to get out of the inning.

Colby Rasmus doubled to start the second inning and scored on the most rare of occurances, a Luis Valbuena single (the Astros equivalent of a Sasquatch sighting).  Velasquez settled down in the bottom of the second and struck out the side.  He also set down the M's in order in the third inning.  He got the first out of the fourth inning, but was replaced by Will Harris after giving up a double and a walk.  His pitch count was 93.  He had only allowed two hits, but had also allowed four walks to go along with five strikeouts.

Each team scored once in the fifth inning which made the score 3-2.  The Astros started pull away in the seventh when Chris Carter drew a walk which was followed by the 10th home run on the season from Rasmus.  George Springer, who had extended his hitting streak to 14 games earlier in the game, added on a run with a solo home run in the ninth inning.

After the M's second run in the fifth inning the bullpen shut down the scoring for the day.  Harris (who earned the win), Joe Thatcher, Pat Neshek and Luke Gregerson allowed only one hit and struck out three over the last 4.1 innings.

The Astros leave Seattle for SoCal today to start a series with the California Angels tomorrow.  Brett Oberholtzer will follow up his great outings in his last two starts, going up against Hector Santiago of the Angels at 9-ish Central time.

Fun Facts

The team has hit multiple homers in eight straight games, a franchise record.

With the Colby Jack today, the Astros now have five players with double-digit home runs:  Rasmus, Valbuena, Carter, Springer and Gattis.

Springer ended up going 3-5 today and has raised his average to .285 on the season.  Guy should be an All-Star...

Tweets of the Night

Gotta walk the line...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rasmus! This is awesome. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a> <a href="https://t.co/pci9JlpOyy">https://t.co/pci9JlpOyy</a></p>&mdash; PDS (@PatDStat) <a href="https://twitter.com/PatDStat/status/612756235486654464">June 21, 2015</a></blockquote>

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I like the looks of this!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I&#39;m just gonna roll around in this for a while. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ALWest?src=hash">#ALWest</a> <a href="http://t.co/onE8dmGewJ">pic.twitter.com/onE8dmGewJ</a></p>&mdash; Jay Carr (@AstrosTracker) <a href="https://twitter.com/AstrosTracker/status/612812605716086784">June 22, 2015</a></blockquote>

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What do we do you guys?  We have too many good players!

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">AJ Reed’s 1.048 OPS leads minor league baseball. The Astros have to start promoting people. Trade some guys, do something. It’s silly.</p>&mdash; Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) <a href="https://twitter.com/EvanDrellich/status/612742309927481345">June 21, 2015</a></blockquote>

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