5 Astros Dingers and Pitching Committee Dominate Angels 9-1

After Tuesday night’s amazing pitching duel between Lance McCullers and Shohei Ohtani, tonight Astros pitching by committee continued the good work. Meanwhile, the dormant Astros home run bats came alive, unleashing five homers accounting for all Astros scoring, giving the Astros a 9-1 win

The bad news is Jose Urquidy, who was looking as sharp as he ever has in his career, left the game with one out and no one on in the fourth with discomfort in his shoulder. Up to that point, he looked like a machine. He threw 44 pitches, 34 for strikes, seven of those whiffs. The Angels managed only two hits, no walks, while striking out four times.

His replacement, Brandon Bielak, simply continued where Urquidy left off. He threw 3.1 innings of scoreless ball before leaving with no outs in the eighth after allowing runners to reach first and third.

Bielak threw 53 pitches, 41 for strikes, also 7 for whiffs. He was charged with a run when his replacement, Ander Scrubb allowed a sacrifice fly.

Scrubb pitched the eighth inning allowing only the one inherited runner to score. Keeping the pace set by his predecessors, he threw 9 strikes out of 11 pitches.

While the Astros staff was shutting down the Trout-less Angels, The Astros lineup was striking with long balls early and often. Jose Altuve hit his fourth homer of the season on the first pitch of the game by Andrew Heaney.

Yuli Gurriel would add two more runs in the inning with his seventh homer.

Kyle Tucker hit his team-leading 8th homer of the season in the sixth inning, a two-run, 416 foot shot to the second deck in right field.

Tucker is 7 for 13 in his last four games with three home runs.

In the eighth inning, Yordan Alvarez added another run with his seventh homer, another right field, second decker.

And just for giggles, Chas McCormick hit a three-run dinger to left-center, his second of the season.

Joe Smith closed out the game with a scoreless ninth for the Astros.

Tomorrow the Mall Cops come to town, sending former Astro Mike Foltynewicz against Cristian Javier, hoping for a bounce-back game.

Game time 7:10.

Box score and videos HERE.