ASTROS TAKE THE SERIES!
Dubón has tiebreaking hit, Peña homers as Astros beat Blue Jays 5-3
Jul 4, 2024, 4:37 pm
ASTROS TAKE THE SERIES!
Mauricio Dubón hit a tiebreaking single in the fifth inning, Jeremy Peña added a solo home run and the Houston Astros beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-3 on Thursday for their 12th win in 14 games.
"I feel like the team has good vibes right now,” Peña said. “Everyone is showing up with a job to do, which is show up, compete, and win the game. I feel like we’re all on the same page.”
Framber Valdez pitched six innings to win his third straight start as the Astros extended their team-record Fourth of July winning streak to seven.
Yordan Alvarez reached base four times and scored a run as Houston won the four-game series 3-1.
“Our goal is to finish this first half strong and playing our best,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “I feel like we’re there right now. We came out here and we took care of business.”
The Blue Jays have lost 12 of 16.
“Got to pick yourself up and keep going,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. "There’s no giving up, there’s no quitting."
Peña went 2 for 4 with a walk and scored twice. He extended Houston’s lead with a solo homer off Trevor Richards in the seventh inning, his seventh of the season. Peña also homered in Monday’s series opener.
Valdez (7-5) allowed three runs and nine hits. He walked two and struck out four.
“It started not his best but he settled down very nicely,” Espada said.
Tayler Scott pitched the seventh, Ryan Pressley worked the eighth and Josh Hader finished for his 14th save in 15 chances.
Both teams scored three runs in a first inning that produced eight hits and two walks.
Yainer Diaz opened the scoring with a bases-loaded groundout and Jon Singleton followed with a two-run single off Toronto right-hander Chris Bassitt.
Toronto answered with five hits against Valdez in the bottom half. Two runs scored on a bases-loaded single by Spencer Horwitz and Alejandro Kirk added an RBI double.
Peña hit a one-out single in the fifth, advanced on a groundout and scored on Dubón’s single to center.
Bassitt (7-7) allowed four runs and eight hits in five innings to lose for the first time since May 17 against Tampa Bay.
The Blue Jays used a walk and an infield single to put two runners on in the bottom of the fifth, but Astros third baseman Alex Bregman started an inning-ending double play on Danny Jansen’s grounder.
Houston turned five double plays Thursday. Bregman was involved in three, including an unassisted double play to end the first where he caught Ernie Clement’s liner and tagged Horwitz.
“I’ve been playing with him since 2022 and every day on defense he seems to amaze me,” Peña said of Bregman. “He makes plays that I don’t see people make.”
Toronto put the tying run at third base with one out in the sixth but Valdez finished his outing by getting Kirk and Clement to ground out.
The Blue Jays intentionally walked Alvarez to load the bases with two outs in the fourth. Diaz fouled out to end the inning.
“I tell you what, it’s tough to pitch to him right now,” Espada said of Alvarez. “I don’t blame Schneider for intentionally walking him. Right now he’s on fire.”
Alvarez was hit by pitches in the sixth and ninth innings.
ROSTER MOVES
Blue Jays: Jansen was activated off the paternity list and catcher Brian Serven was optioned to Triple-A Buffalo.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Blue Jays: Shortstop Bo Bichette was scratched from the lineup because of a right forearm contusion. The two-time AL hit leader struck out on a pitch that hit him in the arm on Wednesday.
UP NEXT
Astros: Espada said RHP reliever Shawn Dubin will start Friday’s game at Minnesota. RHP Pablo López (8-6, 4.88 ERA) is scheduled for the Twins.
Blue Jays: RHP Kevin Gausman (6-7, 4.75 ERA) is scheduled to start Friday against Mariners RHP Luis Castillo (6-9, 3.87) in the opener of a three-game series at Seattle.
There was a conversation Cleveland guard Donovan Mitchell had during training camp, the topic being all the teams that were generating the most preseason buzz in the Eastern Conference. Boston was coming off an NBA championship. New York got Karl-Anthony Towns. Philadelphia added Paul George.
The Cavs? Not a big topic in early October. And Mitchell fully understood why.
“What have we done?” Mitchell asked. “They don't talk about us. That's fine. We'll just hold ourselves to our standard.”
That approach seems to be working.
For the first time in 36 seasons — yes, even before the LeBron James eras in Cleveland — the Cavaliers are atop the NBA at the 25-game mark. They're 21-4, having come back to earth a bit following a 15-0 start but still better than anyone in the league at this point.
“We've kept our standards pretty high,” Cavaliers coach Kenny Atkinson said. “And we keep it going.”
The Cavs are just one of the surprise stories that have emerged as the season nears the one-third-done mark. Orlando — the only team still unbeaten at home — is off to its best start in 16 years at 17-9 and having done most of that without All-Star forward Paolo Banchero. And Houston is 16-8, behind only the Cavs, Boston, Oklahoma City and Memphis so far in the race for the league's best record.
Cleveland was a playoff team a year ago, as was Orlando. And the Rockets planted seeds for improvement last year as well; an 11-game winning streak late in the season fueled a push where they finished 41-41 in a major step forward after a few years of rebuilding.
“We kind of set that foundation last year to compete with everybody,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. “Obviously, we had some ups and downs with winning and losing streaks at times, but to finish the season the way we did, getting to .500, 11-game winning streak and some close losses against high-level playoff teams, I think we kind of proved that to ourselves last year that that's who we're going to be.”
A sign of the respect the Rockets are getting: Oddsmakers at BetMGM Scorebook have made them a favorite in 17 of 24 games so far this season, after favoring them only 30 times in 82 games last season.
“Based on coaches, players, GMs, people that we all know what they're saying, it seems like everybody else is taking notice as well,” Udoka said.
They're taking notice of Orlando as well. The Magic lost their best player and haven't skipped a beat.
Banchero's injury after five games figured to doom Orlando for a while, and the Magic went 0-4 immediately after he tore his oblique. Entering Tuesday, they're 14-3 since — and now have to regroup yet again. Franz Wagner stepped into the best-player-on-team role when Banchero got hurt, and now Wagner is going to miss several weeks with the exact same injury.
Ask Magic coach Jamahl Mosley how the team has persevered, and he'll quickly credit everyone but himself. Around the league, it's Mosley getting a ton of the credit — and rightly so — for what Orlando is doing.
“I think that has to do a lot with Mose. ... I have known him a long time,” Phoenix guard Bradley Beal said. “A huge fan of his and what he is doing. It is a testament to him and the way they’ve built this team.”
The Magic know better than most how good Cleveland is, and vice versa. The teams went seven games in an Eastern Conference first-round series last spring, the Cavs winning the finale at home to advance to Round 2.
Atkinson was brought in by Cleveland to try and turn good into great. The job isn't anywhere near finished — nobody is raising any banners for “best record after 25 games” — but Atkinson realized fairly early that this Cavs team has serious potential.
“We’re so caught up in like the process of improve, improve, improve each game, improve each practice," Atkinson said. “That’s kind of my philosophy. But then you hit 10-0, and obviously the media starts talking and all that, and you’re like, ‘Man, this could be something special brewing here.’”