Astros, down 7-1 at one point, give hope to fans in what has been a rough start to the 2025 season
With a combined 14 pitchers between the two teams, the Astros complete a six-run comeback for their most impressive win of the season so far, coming back to beat the Minnesota Twins 9-7 in 10 innings.
After a season of 29 starts and a sub-3 ERA, Ronel Blanco has come out in 2025 and done nothing but disappoint the fans. After doing just five innings in his first outing of the year against the San Francisco Giants, Blanco couldn’t even get out of the second against the Twins, leaving with two-outs in the bottom of the second with bases-loaded.
This came only after he allowed four Twins to cross the plate, three in the first and another in the second. The first came on a sac-fly from Trevor Larnach with runners at the corners and the next two came courtesy of a Ryan Jeffers double. He only got out of the first after a strikeout to Edouard Julien, one of three on the day for Blanco.
These runs all came after the Astros got the scoring started in the top half of the first after singles from Jose Altuve and Isaac Paredes and a sac fly from Yordan Alvarez put two on for Christian Walker, who smacked an RBI-single into right for his second RBI in an Astros uniform.
That one run was all the Astros were able to muster for the next three innings, with the Twins adding another three in the fourth to make it 7-1, with all the runs being charged to either Blanco or the first guy out of the pen for the Astros, Luis Contreras, both currently with an ERA over eight.
The comeback for the Astros didn’t start till the fifth after a leadoff walk from Zach Dezenzo and double from Jack Meyers flipped the order to the top and brought up Altuve. A ground ball to third that was misplayed gave the Astros their first run of the inning before a Paredes RBI-single and Jeremy Pena RBI-sac fly put the Astros back just three. All of the Astros first four runs came off Minnesota starter Chris Paddack.
Astros pitching also started to pick up their hitters after this, starting with Rafael Montero. In his third appearance out of the pen for the Astros in 2025, he went scoreless for his second time already, giving them two scoreless innings with three strikeouts. They added on another run in between those innings in the fifth on Isaac Paredes’ third hit of the game, another RBI-single.
Bryan King came out as the next pitcher for the Astros after Montero’s two clean innings and matched him, setting the Twins down in order 1-2-3 in the bottom of the seventh. After the Astros got set down in order to start the eighth, they turned the ball over to their fifth pitcher of the game, Bryan Abreu. Despite allowing two Twins to reach to start the inning, he got out clean and kept his ERA at zero through four appearances.
The top of the ninth is when the Astros finally managed to crawl all the way back. After Paredes led off the inning with his team-leading fourth hit of the game, Yordan came up against Griffin Jax on the mound and sent the first pitch he saw over the right center wall for his first bomb of the year, tying the game at seven. Walker followed this up with a double for his second hit of the game, but three-straight strikeouts followed and sent the Twins out with a chance to walk it off in the bottom of the ninth against Astros closer Josh Hader.
Instead, Hader delivered a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth to send the game into extras, the first extra-inning game this season for the Astros.
Starting off extras, Brendan Rodgers was standing on second for the Astros when Chas McCormick led off the top half with a sac-bunt that was picked up by the catcher and thrown to first, getting McCormick while moving Rodgers to third. A Jake Meyers walk and steal allowed Altuve to poke a ball into left and score the leading run for the Astros, leading for the first time all game. They added on one more after that on an Altuve steal at home, putting them up 9-7.
They sent Hader who, for just his fourth time as an Astros pitcher, was looking to go 2+ innings of clean work. This worked out for manager Joe Espada after Hader delivered on that, sitting the Twins down and giving the Astros their fourth win of the year in a 9-7 win over the Twins.
Paredes’ four hits was not only a team high for the game, but it also matches his career high in hits, something he has only done once before in his career. It was also just the second multi-hit game for Alvarez this season, with the other coming in the series finally against San Francisco.
The Astros will hit the road again following this game, this time heading to their first AL West matchup of the year in Seattle for a three-game series against the Mariners. Game one starts on Monday at 8:40 CST.