Angels 3, Astros 2: Gomez Homer, Altuve Milestone Only Highlights In Another Road Loss

What Happened

For five innings the Astros bats couldn't get anything going against fireballer Jered Weaver.  It didn't look that way to start off.  Jose Altuve, the second batter of the game, lined a ball off the wall in left center for a double.  It was the 800th hit of his young career.  Carlos Correa followed with an infield single.  With two outs the double steal was successful, but they were unable to get them home.

Dallas Keuchel had one bad inning, and the worst part was he could have got out of it with no runs.  He allowed a double to Erick Aybar.  After getting another out he walked Carlos Perez.  Taylor Featherston then hit a chopper right back to Keuchel's gold glove...and he muffed it to load the bases.  A wild pitch and a Kole Calhoun single later and three unearned runs had scored.  Keuchel's pitch count was elevated, but he did not allow another run while making it through six innings for another quality start.

The Astros finally got to Weaver in the sixth inning.  After a Correa walk Carlos Gomez launched a no-doubt homer to make the score 3-2.  But that is as close as they would get as the Angels bullpen faced the minimum over the last three innings.  George Springer did reach in the eighth inning on a HBP, but was retired on an Altuve double play.

So the Astros lead is down to 1.5 games as we head into the weekend.  Tomorrow night they will send Lance McCullers to the hill to face Hector Santiago at 8 pm Houston time.  Hopefully they can have more success against a guy who doesn't throw like one of the dad's in the 8 year old Coach Pitch division.

Fun Facts

Altuve is the quickest Astros player ever to reach 800 hits.

The error in the first inning was only the fourth of Keuchel's career.

That was also the 39th consecutive game Keuchel has gone at least six innings.

Tweets of the Night

He should have called a couple more...

.@blummer27 just totally called that home run three seconds before it happened.

— Alyson Footer (@alysonfooter) September 12, 2015

This was good.  Real good...

More soft hits in this Astros-Angels game than Bread recorded!#playoffpush

— Bill Brown (@BrownieTw) September 12, 2015

Wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment ...

Baseball is just being a jerk now.

— Aaron Ashcraft (@Aarcraft9) September 12, 2015