Without the reaction of fans, opening day seemed powerless. But the Astros did not let that steal the moment of this short season.
The Houston Astros kept its opening day streak alive by winning it’s eighth consecutive, downing the Seattle Mariners, 8-2 on Friday night at Minute Maid Park.
The Astros added to its record opening day streak by collecting its eighth consecutive victory with the help of strong pitching and a dangerous lineup.
Alex Bregman’s RBI single in the bottom of the fifth scored Martin Maldonado to give the Astros a 3-2 lead. Michael Brantly’s followed with a three-run bomb to right field to increase the lead 6-2.
Justin Verlander pitched six impressive innings, striking out seven, walking one and surrendering three hits. Two of the three hits were homers by center fielder Kyle Lewis and third baseman Kyle Seager, who slapped a 382 foot shot over the right-field wall.
” Verlander was good tonight,” manager Dusty Baker explained. “When he gives up the homers, it’s usually solo homers.”
Despite the early homers, Verlander settled down, throwing off-speed stuff that induced ground balls and fly ball outs to handcuff the youngest team in the majors. The Mariners average age of 27 showed signs of inexperience against the veteran Houston team.
Houston shelled out ten hits while holding Seattle to five.
For Seattle, Marco Gonzales took the mound and looked sharp early on. He struck out Springer, who led off the bottom of the first. Then got behind in the count 3-0 and 3-1 to Altuve and Bregman but managed to strike out Altuve and forced Bregman to fly out, closing out the first inning.
” It didn’t start off good, that kid Gonzales was carving us up for a while,” said Baker.
Gonzales was making his second straight opening day appearance. Last year he beat the Oakland Athletics 9-7 in Tokyo, Japan.
But it wasn’t long before the Astros power-hitting line up caught up to Gonzales, chasing the left-hander from the game in the fifth inning. He pitched four and 1/3 innings, giving up four runs on four hits, a walk, and three of the runs were earned.
With a 60-game schedule, execution is a top priority for Houston, who looks to make it back to the World Series.
The Mariners led 1-0 after Lewis’ homer and 2-1 after Seagers 382 feet shot in the left-field seats. But the Astros put together a clutch fifth inning fueled by Seager’s throwing error to second baseman Shed Long who failed to throw out Diaz. Instead, the ball got away as Diaz round second to third base.
That opened a five-run inning, and Houston led 6-2.
As the game progressed, Seattle had no answer for Astros, sending four pitchers to the mound.
Game two of the four-game series, Astros Lance McCullers, will face Taijuan Walker on Saturday at 3:00 PM.