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You can’t win them all, right? The Astros rediscovered that truth the hard way on this Saturday evening as they were bested by the Twins to the score of 5-2. If I could summarize the game in one fell swoop, it would be that there wasn’t enough hitting with too much ineffective pitching.
Luis Garcia, who entered this game with a 1.86 ERA in his last five starts, coughed up four earned runs in only 4 1⁄3 innings, effectively putting the Astros behind the eight-ball all day long. It also didn’t help that Garcia didn’t appear to have his best stuff tonight as his pitch velocity was down across the board. Hopefully, it wasn’t an injury, but it is worth remembering that Garcia has now thrown 63 1⁄3 innings this season. The right-hander hasn’t topped that inning total since the 2019 season in the minors.
If there was a silver lining as it pertains to the pitching side of things, it would be Blake Taylor’s scoreless 1 2⁄3 innings. Outside of a rough outing against the Red Sox on June 10, the left-hander now has four scoreless outings since his return from an ankle injury back in April.
The lineup simply didn’t have an answer for Twins’ starter Jose Berríos in this one with Carlos Correa having a day off. While Houston did tag him for two runs thanks to a pair of solo home runs from Kyle Tucker and Robel García, Berríos struck out eight and only issued one walk in seven innings. He effectively shut down arguably the league’s best offense. It carried over into the last two frames of the game as the Astros couldn’t touch Minnesota’s bullpen before the loss was complete. The top of the lineup was relatively dreadful, outside of a couple of walks from Michael Brantley.
The top five hitters in the Astros' lineup are 0-for-16 with two walks:
— Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) June 13, 2021
Altuve 0-for-4
Brantley 0-for-2 (2 walks)
Bregman 0-for-4
Alvarez 0-for-3
Gurriel 0-for-3
The Astros look to take the series tomorrow with Framber Valdez taking the mound against Michael Pineda for Minnesota. Let’s hope that the lineup is able to click and that Valdez continues his impressive start to the 2021 campaign following an IL stint to begin the season.