Game Recap: Pitching, Defense Take One in Baltimore, Astros 2, O’s 1

Jake Marisnick won tonight’s game with a clutch walk-off in the bottom of the ninth.

Not a walk-off hit, but another amazing superman catch in center field, this one with two outs in the bottom of the ninth that prevented the Orioles from tying the score. A walk-off catch if you will, and for the good it did the Astros, it might as well have been a ninth inning home run to tie the score.

According to Statcast the ball Jake caught had a 72% hit probability. Seems low to my eye.

Here it is.

It was a night for pitching and defense. Gerrit Cole pitched six innngs, allowing only one run, and breaching the 200 inning mark for the season. The run came in the first on a lucky check swing double by Adam Jones, although Cole would allow four other hits and a walk to go with four strikeouts.

The Astros tied the game in the sixth with a Marwin Gonzalez single to score Marisnick, and would go ahead in the eighth with a Josh Reddick home run, his seventeenth.

See here.

After Cole, Tony Sipp and Collin McHugh would each pitch highly impressive single innings in relief, and in the ninth Roberto Osuna came in to do his closer thang, but with two outs he allowed a bloop single and then a wild pitch to put the tying run on second.

Which of course set up Jake Marisnick’s walk-off catch, one of an ever growing body of remarkable catches made this year by one of baseball’s premier defensive center fielders.

Tonight’s victory was the 101st of the season for the Astros, which ties last year’s World Series championship club for the second most in team history. Houston needs one win in its final three games of the regular season to tie the 1998 team’s record of 102.

Tony Sipp got the win tonight, his third, to go with a 1.89 ERA

Correa watch: 0-3, 1 K, 1 GIDP, 1 walk

Tomorrow the Astros play a double header starting at 3:05 CDT.

Dylan Bundy goes against the Astros ace, Justin Verlander.

Box score and videos here.