Game Recap: Royals 4, Astros 2 – Big Zone Fun Night

Home plate umpire Eric Cooper had an oddly shaped, but consistently large strike zone on Wednesday night. I endorse the big zone.  Yordano Ventura, whose only blemish was a massive home run from the diminutive Jose Altuve in six innings and Scott Feldman, who was tagged for two runs only because of his own throwing error over seven innings, would both agree.

While talking about things we like, how about Ventura over the first five innings?  Until running into some trouble in the sixth, Ventura had allowed just two hits as he mixed pitches and generally seemed to be throwing effortlessly. Even after the Altuve home run, Ventura was one out away from getting out of the inning before a walk, a single and a pretty atrocious Alcides Escobar error loaded the bases.  Thankfully, Carlos Gomez had zero clue what to do with Ventura and the Royals went to the pen up one run.

Things got very interesting as Luke Hochevar took the mound in the seventh. Hochevar gave up a one out triple to catcher Jason Castro that was then followed by a Jose Altuve hustle double. Let’s stop for a moment right here.  First, Houston’s ballpark is quirky, but Castro’s triple was a bomb. Second, the angst over the Royals playing the infield in up one in the seventh does not land home for me. Yes, Altuve’s double is out if Escobar is playing back, but the tying run would still have scored.

All of the preceding paragraph was much easier to swallow as Hochevar rallied to strike out both George Springer and Carlos Correa. That result glosses over the Escobar sixth inning error that certainly cost Ventura and Yost a chance to wring another inning out of Yordano’s start and thus save a taxed back end of the bullpen.

Of course, ALL THAT is not an issue given that Kelvin Herrera took just 16 pitches to get through the eighth inning and managed that modest pitch count despite walking one and striking out two.  He was followed by a Joakim Soria save that took all of five pitches. By the way, did anyone other than Ryan and Rex think that Wade Davis was available tonight?

And, of course, the efforts of Herrera and Soria were impactful because Alex Gordon, who still is missing many baseballs my multiple inches, worked a walk and then Salvador Perez ripped a home run to get the lead back for the Royals.  Perez’s home run came two pitches after he waved at a pitch that Jeff Francoeur might have thought was too far outside.  Clutch is not real, but Salvy is, well, kind of clutch sometimes.

In the end, another Royals’ win:  number six out of eight games.  They have managed that despite not firing on all cylinders. Kansas City has hit a little, basically just enough.  They have had decent starting pitching, but not great. The bullpen has done its job, but that is not the lock ‘em up bullpen we have quite expected. Yet, here stand the Kansas City Royals with a 6-2 record.

Good baseball teams are fun.