Houston Astros’ Carlos Correa questions a called third strike by home plate umpire Bill Miller during the eighth inning of the Astros’ baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016, in Houston.
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Estrada credited Martin for identifying that the changeup was his best pitch on this night and he kept calling it.
The Blue Jays got a huge series win against the Houston Astros this week as they took three of four games in a low scoring stretch for both teams and now they will look to continue their recent success as they stay on the road to face off against the World Series champions at Kauffman.
The Astros are batting.174 with six runs scored and 52 strikeouts in the team’s last five games. “We have a pretty good connection”. Fiers is coming off a solid outing Saturday against Detroit where he took a no-decision after allowing one run in 6 1-3 innings. “He had a ton of conviction early in his pitches”.
Tuesday, Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion accounted for Toronto’s two home runs in a 2-1 win.
It gave Toronto a 1-0 lead and broke a string of seven straight Toronto runs scored by solo home runs, going back to Sunday’s game in Toronto. The Royals did lose a number of key pieces from last year’s team through injury and offseason movement but they still have some nice pieces but they just couldn’t find a way to generate the same level of consistency this season and their ridiculous performance in one run games last season has certainly regressed.
“Home runs are kind of accidents”, McHugh said.
His previous high was 133 1/3 between Double-A, Triple-A and the majors in 2014.
Wednesday, the Jays hit three of them – two by Josh Donaldson and the other by Jose Bautista – and Marco Estrada made them stand up for a 3-1 victory at Minute Maid Park.
The Astros were able to get to the lefty in the 5th after Evan Gattis lead off the inning with a double.
“I can’t say I haven’t seen it before”, Gibbons said about Estrada.
For Happ, who at 33 is enjoying the best season since his 2009 rookie campaign, it was the 12th time in his 22 starts this year that he has held the opposition to one or no runs. “He’s been a good pitcher for a long time”.
Estrada gave up just four hits without issuing a walk and got bullpen help from Joe Biagini and Roberto Osuna to nail it down.
“Altuve was aggressive knowing he was going to get a strike”, Hinch said. “You know Correa’s at-bat, their guy did a pretty good job of getting ahead of him and it was a bad time for a miss”.
Blue Jays: SS Troy Tulowitzki (thumb) was out of the lineup for the third straight game Wednesday.
Astros: RHP Luke Gregerson was placed on the 15-day disabled list retroactive to July 28 with a left oblique strain.
Blue Jays: LHP J.A. Happ (14-3) will be going for his ninth straight win Thursday. The left-hander has not lost since June 6 and has allowed three runs or fewer in each of his past five starts.
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Happ was able to escape a bit of trouble in the 6th inning, his last, with runners on the corners and one out.
