Bullpen falters as Astros lose 8-4 to Rangers

Despite the Astros having an early 3-0 lead in the first two innings, pitching was not sharp this Saturday and Houston dropped the second game in a row to the Rangers, this time also helped by a couple of defensive errors. Going back to last year, this was the fifth consecutive loss in Globe Life Field.

The offense got it going in the first thanks to a Yordan Álvarez RBI groundout and a sacrifice fly from Yuli Gurriel for his 38th ribbie of the campaign. But Lance McCullers Jr. didn’t have his best stuff today and his outing began with a 40-pitch first inning that made everybody know it was gonna be a short performance.

Somehow, Lance made it through the fifth and allowed six hits and three earned runs, one thanks to another home run by Adolis García. The young righty walked four and struck out seven, including one punchout to García with this beautiful slider…

The Astros got to the seventh up 4-3, but that’s where everything went wrong for them as the Rangers rallied to put five more runs on the board.

Andre Scrubb, who finished the sixth, surrendered García’s second homer of the game to open the inning. Then, Khris Davis doubled with one out, Isiah Kiner-Falefa reached base on a fielding error by Enoli Paredes, who walked Brock Holt immediately after that.

With bases loaded, José Trevino hit a two-run double to put the Rangers ahead 6-4. Later, an error by Alex Bregman allowed them to score two more and leave things 8-4.

Offensively for the Astros, Chas McCormick hit his third four-bagger of the season and José Altuve made it to 16 consecutive games with at least a hit. He’s now three games shy of tying the best streak of his career (19).

Houston will come out on Sunday (2:35 pm ET) to try to avoid being swept. Cristian Javier gets the ball. The young righty hasn’t won a game in May and owns a 5.40 ERA in four starts during this month.