Alex Bregman, Astros Walk Off Dodgers In Dramatic 7-6 Win

Stop me if you heard this one before: Alex Bregman walks off the Dodgers to give the Astros a dramatic come-from-behind victory. No, this isn’t 2017; this is 2024.

Talk about a roller coaster of a game. To start, Ronel Blanco didn’t have his best stuff, requiring 49 pitches to obtain his first six outs. Shohei Ohtani blasted a 92 mph fastball for a (thankfully) solo 443-foot home run with a 118.7 mph exit velocity. While Blanco’s velocity and spin rate were on par or higher with his season averages, in addition to nine strikeouts this evening, the right-hander has nearly matched his previous career-high for innings pitched in a season (125 ¹⁄₃ innings in 2023). He would eventually require an additional 50 pitches to obtain his next seven outs, with Bryan King relieving him in the fifth inning with two runners on base. But I do have to say that Blanco’s last pitch to Will Smith was impressive. I mean, it took some guts considering the context of the game.

Unfortunately, King couldn’t keep the Dodgers from scoring two more runs, with Gavin Lux and Teoscar Hernandez each driving in a run with a pair of singles to make it a 4-0 Dodgers lead. No Freddie Freeman or Mookie Betts, no problem so far for the Dodgers thus far. With the lineup scuffling against *checks notes* Justin Wrobleski, it didn’t feel like Houston’s night. That feeling was only reinforced following Ohtani’s RBI single against Shawn Dubin in the sixth inning, increasing the deficit to five runs.

But the tide started to shift in the bottom half of the sixth inning. The Astros would eventually see Wrobleski exit the game with runners on the corners and two outs. Dave Roberts turned to Evan Phillips with Yainer Díaz at the plate with a 5-0 lead. Advantage Los Angeles, right? Well, four singles later and the Astros made it a game again, turning a 5-0 deficit into a much more manageable 5-4 score. Bryan Abreu would subsequently throw a scoreless seventh, however, Cavan Biggio would make his presence known in the eighth, taking Tayler Scott deep for a solo home run.

Facing Dakota Hudson and a 6-4 deficit by the eighth inning, the Astros were quickly running out of chances to overtake the Dodgers. Houston’s chances of winning dropped to 11.8% following Yordan Alvarez’s flyout for the first out. With only five outs left, again, they were running out of chances. But something happened: The Astros first extra-base hit of the night, thanks to Dìaz’s triple. Jeremy Peña’s single in the very next at-bat made it a one-run game one more time. Jon Singleton would single — pun not intended — a short time later to tie the game up. Josh Hader would then pitch a scoreless top of the ninth, which helped set the scene for what was coming next.

And that was the ballgame in what was arguably the Astros’ best win of the season. Taking two out of three against the Dodgers, even at home, isn’t an easy task. With the Rangers losing, Houston increased its lead over their in-state rival to 4.5 games. However, the Mariners would win their Friday game to keep that lead only one game. Spencer Arrighetti gets the nod tomorrow against another young Dodgers starter, this time River Ryan.