Game Recap: Astros Homers Hammer Halos. Stros Take Game One 9-3

As the season enters the home stretch is the offense we remember from last year finally emerging?

In their last game the Astros scored 10 runs on 17 hits. Tonight they cooled off a little bit, only scoring 9 runs and settling for only 12 hits.

Like this Grand slam in the fifth inning from Marwin Gonzalez.

It was the second in Gonzalez’ career. In August before tonight Margo is slashing .319/.382/.623, which figures to a 173 wRC+. That was before tonight’s homer and double. He now has 13 homers for the year, 7 in August to go with 16 RBI.

How about our two Prodigal Astros, just returned from the DL. Here’s Altuve’s first homer, a solo shot in the third inning, since coming back from a month of “knee discomfort.”

And here’s Carlos “Groot” Correa and the Astros gang doing the home run stare after Correa launched his first bomb since “back discomfort” sidelined him for six weeks.

Like Gonzalez, Altuve, and the irrepressible Tyler White, Correa also had two hits today, and in his last three games he now has five hits, five runs and three RBI.

Could it be that with Correa, Altuve, Gonzalez and White, all hot or heating up, and with Springer soon to return, that the Astros might soon be hitting, finally, on all the proverbial cylinders?

Dallas Keuchel pitched efficiently, going six scoreless on five hits, until he gave up a two run homer in the seventh inning to Taylor Ward. He had 6 K’s and a game score of 62.

This was Keuchel’s sixth straight victory over the Angels, and 10th in his last 12 against them.

The Astros have brains and braun. This play is executed by Jose Altuve with baseball IQ that’s off the charts.

Tomorrow the Angels’ Jaime Barria faces Justin Verlander.

Game time 8:07 CDT

Box score and videos here.