Astros 3, Angels 0: Pitching strong in shutout

Basically a perfect ballgame. Sure, I would have accepted an Astros’ home run or two, but for my money, a 3-run home shutout that only lasts 2.5 hours is just about baseball nirvana.

Charlie Morton pitched five strong innings tonight, but the real story on the pitching side of things was Chris Devenski, Luke Gregerson, and Ken Giles combining to pitch four perfect innings of relief -- it doesn’t get much better than that, folks.

The Astros offense was never able to string together a big inning, but they did manage to pepper the Angels with nine hits, scoring one run in each of the second, third, and eighth innings.

The Astros biggest missed opportunity came in the bottom of the second when Alex Bregman was thrown out stealing second base. The caught stealing was a bummer, because Jesse Chavez proceeded to walk Marwin Gonzalez and Yulieski Gurriel immediately afterwards, which would have loaded the bases. Even if Aoki had still grounded out to first, if Bregman had been on third instead of thrown out, he definitely would have scored; instead it was the third out of the inning. Oh well, in the end, it was no harm no foul, and most of the Astros’ aggressive base running in this game paid off.

My favorite moment of the game also came in the second inning when Angels’ third baseman, Yunel Escobar, obviously worried about Evan Gattis’ incredible speed, rushed a throw to first, which ended up sailing way over the bag. Speed never slumps, y’all.

The Astros play the Angels again tomorrow night at Minute Maid Park, starting at 7:10 PM CT.