Newly acquired Cam Smith mashes his first two homers with the Astros
In the first games that included Astros debuts for both Christan Walker and Isaac Peredes and the season and the first outing of the season for Ronel Blanco, Cam Smith, the outfielder that the Astros got from the Cubs in the Kyle Tucker trade, took over. The 22-year-old smacked two homers to right-center to help lead the Astros to a 8-5 win over the Mets.
Right from the start, Blanco didn’t look that good. A leadoff single reached third on a stolen base and a throwing error and he came around to score on a one-out single, giving the Mets a 1-0 lead in the first. Blanco got out of the inning after the single with a pop out and a groundout, but a 24 pitch first is not a good start to a game.
It was not all bad in the first though. As the Astros came up in the bottom half, new Astros third baseman Isaac Peredes was up second and in his first AB of his Astros career, he drew a 7-pitch walk after falling behind 0-2. Following that, free-agent signee Christian Walker came up to bat for his first time as an Astro and, on the sixth pitch of the AB, Walker roped a double over the center fielder’s head, putting runners on the corners.
The Astros took the lead in the first before the Mets tied it up in the second after a leadoff bomb off Blanco. He got to face three more batters in the second, giving up two hits, before getting pulled with runners on the corners.
It was not a great start for Blanco, who only managed 1.1 innings while surrendering five hits and three runs. After the season he had last year, it is not what people were expecting to see. Blanco did not appear to be hurt in any way, still sitting mid-high 90s on his fastball, but he was not able to put his pitches where he wanted them, leaving too many over the heart of the plate.
As for Walker and Paredes, both of them looked to be calm and focused at the plate. They both had good approaches when stepping into the box, despite their opposite sides of success. The real highlights were from Cam Smith.
With the Astros up 5-4, Cam Smith came in to pitch hit for Parades and sent the first pitch he saw over the right center wall for his first Astros homer and give Houston a three-run lead. He doubled down on that a couple innings later when he sent a second homer of the game to the same spot, putting the Astros up 8-4.
Playing third base as well, Smith could offer the Astros some depth in the future at the corner along with Paredes there.