Houston took a no-hitter into the eighth
Astros dominate Orioles to extend winning streak to eight
Jun 21, 2021, 11:27 pm
Odorizzi threw five no-hit innings against the Orioles Monday night. Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images.
Odorizzi threw five no-hit innings against the Orioles Monday night.
After an impressive four-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox to cap off their recent homestand, the Astros started a week-long road trip on Monday in Baltimore. The game was delayed about an hour due to rain, but once it got started, it was all Astros as they dominated Baltimore for their eighth straight win.
Final Score: Astros 10, Orioles 2
Astros' Record: 44-28, first in the AL West
Winning Pitcher: Jake Odorizzi (2-3)
Losing Pitcher: Keegan Akin (0-3)
Odorizzi goes five hitless innings
Jake Odorizzi had his best start of the year, taking care of business against a struggling Baltimore lineup. He was perfect through the first four and one-third innings, retiring the first thirteen batters he faced. The only allowed baserunner came with one out in the fifth, on a walk, which he erased by sitting down the next two batters. With a rising pitch count, he would get the knuckles from Dusty Baker to end his night: 5.0 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K, 86 P.
Houston plates five in the third
Tippin' on 44s 💣#VoteAlvarez 🌟 https://t.co/W1Z6NoLggU pic.twitter.com/KUlrIAucmh
— Houston Astros (@astros) June 22, 2021
His offense gifted him with a large lead by exploding for a big third inning. The first four batters all reached base, with Chas McCormick bringing in the first run of the night on an RBI single. Yuli Gurriel brought in another with a sac fly for the first out, followed by Yordan Alvarez, who scored the remaining two players on base with a three-run opposite-field homer to make it 5-0.
Cristian Javier took over in the bottom of the sixth, completing a 1-2-3 inning to keep Baltimore hitless. Houston added to their lead in the top of the seventh, getting Yuli Gurriel's second sac fly of the night and an RBI single by Carlos Correa to make it 7-0. Javier returned to the mound, with rain falling, and retired three more Orioles hitters in order in the bottom of the seventh.
Astros take the opener
As the rain picked up in the top of the eighth, the umpiring crew had no choice but to delay the game 41 minutes with one out and a runner on. When things resumed, Michael Brantley continued to rake, hitting a two-RBI double, then a pinch-hitting Garret Stubbs made it double-digits with an RBI double to make it 10-0.
In the bottom of the eighth, Brandon Bielak hit a batter with one out, then after a missed strike three by Angel Hernandez, which would've kept the no-hitter going, Baltimore got a two-run homer to end the no-hitter and make it a 10-2 game. Brooks Raley came in for the bottom of the ninth, wrapping up the long game and giving Houston their eighth win in a row to take over sole possession of first place in the AL West with an Oakland loss earlier in the evening.
Up Next: The middle game of this three-game series will start at 6:05 PM Central on Tuesday and features the pitching matchup of Zack Greinke (7-2, 3.74 ERA) for the Astros and Jorge Lopez (2-8, 5.95 ERA) for the Orioles.
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
They’ll be watching in Canada, not just because of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, though the NBA’s scoring champion and MVP favorite who plays for Oklahoma City surely helps lure in fans who are north of the border.
They’ll be watching from Serbia and Greece, the homelands of Denver star Nikola Jokic and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Alperen Sengun will have them watching Houston games in the middle of the night in Turkey, too. Slovenian fans will be watching Luka Doncic and the Lakers play their playoff opener at 2:30 a.m. Sunday, 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Los Angeles. Fans in Cameroon will be tuned in to see Pascal Siakam and the Indiana Pacers. Defending champion Boston features, among others, Kristaps Porzingis of Latvia and Al Horford of the Dominican Republic.
Once again, the NBA playoffs are setting up to be a showcase for international stars.
In a season where the five statistical champions were from five different countries, an NBA first — Gilgeous-Alexander is Canadian, rebounding champion Domantas Sabonis of Sacramento is from Lithuania, blocked shots champion Victor Wembanyama of San Antonio is from France, steals champion Dyson Daniels of Atlanta is from Australia, and assists champion Trae Young of the Hawks is from the U.S. — the postseason will have plenty of international feel as well. Gilgeous-Alexander is in, while Sabonis and Daniels (along with Young, obviously) could join him if their teams get through the play-in tournament.
“We have a tremendous number of international players in this league,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this season. “It’s roughly 30% of our players representing, at least on opening day, 43 different countries, so there’s much more of a global sense around our teams.”
By the end of the season, it wound up being 44 different countries — at least in terms of countries where players who scored in the NBA this season were born. For the first time in NBA history, players from one country other than the U.S. combined to score more than 15,000 points; Canadian players scored 15,588 this season, led by Gilgeous-Alexander, the first scoring champion from that country.
Gilgeous-Alexander is favored to be MVP this season. It'll be either him or Jokic, which means it'll be a seventh consecutive year with an international MVP for the NBA. Antetokounmpo won twice, then Jokic won three of the next four, with Cameroon-born Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers winning two seasons ago.
“Shai is in the category of you do not stop him,” Toronto coach Darko Rajakovic said after a game between the Raptors and Thunder this season.
In other words, he's like a lot of other international guys now. Nobody truly stops Jokic, Antetokounmpo and Doncic either.
And this season brought another international first: Doncic finished atop the NBA's most popular jersey list, meaning NBAStore.com sold more of his jerseys than they did anyone else's. Sure, that was bolstered by Doncic changing jerseys midseason when he was traded by Dallas to the Los Angeles Lakers, but it still is significant.
The Slovenian star is the first international player to finish atop the most popular jerseys list — and the first player other than Stephen Curry or LeBron James to hold that spot in more than a decade, since soon-to-be-enshrined Basketball Hall of Famer Carmelo Anthony did it when he was with New York in 2012-13.
“We’re so small, we have 2 million people. But really, our sport is amazing,” fellow Slovene Ajsa Sivka said when she was drafted by the WNBA's Chicago Sky on Monday night and asked about Doncic and other top Slovenian athletes. “No matter what sport, we have at least someone that’s great in it. I’m just really proud to be Slovenian.”
All this comes at a time where the NBA is more serious than perhaps ever before about growing its international footprint. Last month, FIBA — the sport's international governing body — and the NBA announced a plan to partner on a new European basketball league that has been taking shape for many years. The initial target calls for a 16-team league and it potentially could involve many of the biggest franchise names in Europe, such as Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City.
It was a season where four players topped 2,000 points in the NBA and three of them were international with Gilgeous-Alexander, Jokic and Antetokounmpo. Globally, time spent watching NBA League Pass was up 6% over last season. More people watched NBA games in France this season than ever before, even with Wembanyama missing the final two months. NBA-related social media views in Canada this season set records, and league metrics show more fans than ever were watching in the Asia-Pacific region — already a basketball hotbed — as well.
FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis said the numbers — which are clearly being fueled by the continued international growth — suggest the game is very strong right now.
“Looking around the world, and of course here in North America," Zagklis said, "the NBA is most popular and more commercially successful than ever.”