Astros Sweep Rockies, Take Seventh Straight, Reach .500 for the First Time All Year

Spencer Arrighetti has a career best game in Astros 7-1 win

To those who say that with Brent Strom’s resignation as head pitching coach of the Astros, the team can no longer develop young talent, Ronel Blanco, Hunter Brown, and Spencer Arrighetti will have a word with you.

The Astros’ starting rotation has become an injury graveyard of pitchers, gone or mostly gone are: Justin Verlander, Cristian Javier, Luis Garcia, Lance McCullers, J.P. France, and Jose Urquidy. Of the championship 2022 staff that leaves only Framber Valdez, who has missed some time, too.

That leaves us with the aforementioned Blanco, Brown, and Arrighetti. We’ll hear more about Blanco during the All-Star pregame show, but let us today celebrate the emergence of Hunter Brown and today’s hero, Spencer Arrighetti.

Yesterday, Brown shot a seven-inning shutout. It was his seventh straight quality start, during which time his ERA is 1.47. In the previous nine starts, Brown’s ERA was 7.71.

Today, Arrighetti duplicated Brown’s effort: seven innings, no runs, three hits, zero walks and 10 Ks. Wow!

Arrigeghtti’s path to progress has been less linear. In his first six starts his ERA was 8.44. In the next five, his production improved to 3.12. However, in his last two starts, he regressed badly with a 15.88 ERA. Today he looked nearly unhittable. He left the game after 89 pitches. Seventy were strikes. He was ahead in counts all day, with 19 of 24 first-pitch strikes. His game score was 81.

With today’s win, the Astros are at .500 for the first time all year. If the Astros make the playoffs after falling into such an early season hole, huge credit will have to go to these three Cinderella stories.

The Astros’ pitcher factory keeps churning them out. Did I mention Tay Scott?

The Astros waited until the fourth inning before getting to Rockies starter Ryan Feltner, thanks to a Yainer Diaz RBI single.

The Stros added another run in the fifth on a Jose Altuve single, scoring Cesar Salazar, who doubled with two outs ahead of Altuve.

The Astros went big in the seventh inning with four runs and with a little help from sloppy Rockie defense, who made three errors today. It started with a Jon Singleton infield single, a Jeremy Pena bloop single that should have been caught. Joey Loperfido was hit by a pitch, and then Cesar Salazar plated the first run with a sac fly.

Two more runs scored on a fielder’s choice grounder featuring a dumb throw home with no chance, and then a throwing error on a grounder. A Yordan Alvarez double followed by another RBI single by Diaz scored the fourth run, Diaz’s 40th RBI of the year.

Since June 3, Diaz is slashing .311/.333/.574, with a wRC+ of 150. It seems like he’s starting to figure it out in his sophomore season. Those numbers do not include today’s 3 – 4 performance.

The Rockies wrecked the shutout with a run off reliever Shawn Dubin in the eighth. The Astros added a run in the eighth with a Pena single, scoring Mauricio Dubon, who doubled earlier.

Another unsung Astros rookie, Bryan King, finished the game with a scoreless ninth, his second big-league inning pitched, both without allowing a run.

Because the Mariners won today, the Astros remain 4.5 games behind in the AL West division race. The Astros have a day off tomorrow but go to New York on Friday to face the Mets.

Box score HERE.