Here's how the Astros can avoid the sting from MLB's draft punishment
QUICK HITS
08 June 2020
The MLB Draft begins Wednesday and this year it will have a very different look than previous years. There will only be five rounds of the draft, and the Astros have four picks available to them. The Astros won't have their 1st and 2nd round selections because of the punishment they face from MLB, but they do have a compensatory pick at number 72 overall that they received for losing Gerrit Cole in free agency. No. 72 will be their first selection, and they will also have one pick in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th rounds. What's encouraging about this draft for the Astros is who will be making the selections.
The Astros have their new GM in James Click, and he'll clearly have a huge role. But what might surprise some Astros fans is that the two men that ran the 2019 draft when Jeff Luhnow was in charge, are still with the team and working with Click. Charles Cook and Kris Gross. Gross leads the Astros amateur scouting, and Cook was promoted to director of player evaluation last fall by Jeff Luhnow. The Astros definitely have a tough task ahead of them without their 1st and 2nd round picks, but at least they have experienced talent evaluators in the building that learned directly from Jeff Luhnow. Say what you want about Jeff Luhnow, but his resume is elite when it comes to team building and analytics.
Zack Short hits an RBI single in 11th inning to lift Astros over Rangers
Jul 13, 2025, 12:05 am
Zack Short hit a walk-off RBI single in the 11th inning after Christian Walker tied it with a sacrifice fly and the Houston Astros beat the Texas Rangers 5-4 on Saturday night.
Short hit a 1-1 pitch to right field off Hoby Milner after Robert Garcia (1-5) walked two to load the bases.
Texas took a 4-3 lead when Adolis García hit the first pitch from Bennett Sousa (3-0) for a single — scoring automatic runner Marcus Semien.
Kyle Higashioka hit a solo home run off Josh Hader with two outs in the ninth to tie it 3-3. It was the first blown save for Hader after 25 straight to begin the season.
Jose Altuve hit his 17th homer — a two-out solo shot in the first off Jacob deGrom to tie it 1-1 after the Rangers scored an unearned run on Framber Valdez’s wild pitch.
Yainer Diaz homered for the 14th time for a 2-1 lead in the fourth. Mauricio Dubón hit his sixth homer off Jacob Webb for a 3-1 lead in the seventh.
Semien hit his 11th homer to cut it to 3-2 in the eighth.
Valdez allowed an unearned run on four hits with 10 strikeouts and no walks in six innings. The Astros have won his last 12 starts with him getting the win in nine of them.
DeGrom allowed two runs on four hits and a walk in six innings with eight strikeouts.
The Rangers struck out 19 times — two short of the club record for an extra-inning game.
Key moment
Short entered as a pinch runner in the ninth and was just 4 for 17 before his game winner.
Key stat
Houston hasn’t lost a season series with division rival Texas since 2016.
Up next
Rangers RHP Nathan Eovaldi (6-3, 1.62 ERA) starts Sunday’s rubber game opposite Astros RHP Hunter Brown (9-3, 2.21).
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