With another blowout victory, the Houston Astros (63-60) keep their dreams of a wild card berth alive. They handily defeated the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday, 12-2, to win their fifth game in six tries this season against the O’s.
The Astros’ batters are starting to show a lot of oomph like they did last season, with catcher Jason Castro knocking one out of the park and driving in four runs in Saturday’s win. Alex Bregman and George Springer also homered in yesterday’s contest and are two of the hottest hitters in the league right now. Bregman has racked up 11 hits over the last five games, while Springer has gone 8-of-13 with two homers over the last three.
Houston better keep its offense going in the series finale on Sunday because a win won’t come easy with Dallas Keuchel (7-12, 4.76 ERA) taking the mound. The reigning AL Cy Young Award winner has still not found his magic from the previous campaign, having lost three of his last four starts. And although Keuchel posted a complete-game shutout over the Rangers earlier this month, he also gave up six runs in just five innings of work against the Cardinals in his most recent start.
As the Astros offense goes on a tear, the once-prolific bats of the Baltimore Orioles (67-55), meanwhile, continue to dwindle at the worst time. Outside of Chris Davis, who now has a four-game home run streak, there’s practically nobody else on the roster that’s producing as well as Davis.
With their recent struggles, the Orioles now find themselves two and-a-half games behind the top spot of the raucous AL East standings. Even worse, they have also lost five of their last six games in Camden Yards.
The pitching hasn’t stepped up yet either, with team ace Chris Tillman having allowed six runs and five walks in just two innings on Saturday. All in all, Baltimore pitchers surrendered 10 walks to the Astros in the loss.
Don’t expect the starting pitching to get better on Sunday either, as Yovani Gallardo (4-4, 5.18 ERA) will close out the four-game series against Houston. Gallardo has just one win in his last nine starts, and the Astros can expect more runners to get on-base via freebies yet again, as the Mexican righty had walked five batters in his previous start.
Writer’s Prediction
The Orioles finally find some life on offense, but the Astros (-120) still emerge victorious, 7-5.
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