Five (5) Home runs in Four (4) games, including last night’s grand slam and Jose Altuve is back to doing Jose Altuve things. His Houston Astros’ by the way have recorded their 7th straight win after grand slamming twice to come from behind and beat the Seattle Mariners 10-6.
The second knock to unload the bases came courtesy of Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel.
The 5′ 6” slugger Altuve commented after the win that he doesn’t know what’s different, and he’s even been self-scouting, studying video of his swing and seeing no difference between this week and last. Its just Altuve and his teammates hitting pay-dirt in April.
“You want to know what you’re doing good because when you start not hitting the ball very good you want to come right back to that,” Altuve said. “But I feel like I’m doing the same thing. I would say I’m getting good pitches to hit.”
Altuve’s grand slam in the win over Seattle, extended a career-best streak of consecutive games with a home run to four. Jose Altuve had four roundtrippers in the Astros’ previous three-game series sweep of the New York Yankees bringing his total to six (6) on the season.
The Astros deep fly party got started Friday Night with a Springer Dinger for 2 cutting the Mariners lead to 3-2. Yuli Gurriel, filling in for the injured Alex Bregman, hit a second Astros’ grand slam in the eighth inning to secure their seventh straight dub.
“We have so many good players, starting with Springer,” Altuve said. “He hit the two-run homer to get some momentum. Then we kept swinging, kept getting on base, and it seems like even with two outs the inning is not over for us and we keep scoring runs.”
The combination of starter Wade Miley, a former Mariners pitcher, and Brad Peacock (2-0) helped Houston hold down Seattle’s muscular lineup, which came into the series with its AL West rival with 36 home runs and 117 runs scored.
The Mariners, who entered the game with a six-game winning streak, appeared to be up to the tricks that helped them to the major league’s best record three weeks into the season, jumping on Miley early. They forced him to throw 41 pitches in the first inning, taking a 1-0 lead on Tim Beckham’s RBI single. Domingo Santana’s two-RBI single extended the lead to 3-0 in the second.
Up Next for the ‘Stros:
Astros: RHP Justin Verlander (1-0, 4.24) has a 12-9 career record against the Mariners, but was abused in his last appearance against the Mariners, giving up six HRs and seven hits in two innings last August in Houston.
Mariners: RHP Felix Hernandez (1-0, 4.26) returns to the mound after being pulled following one inning Monday at the Kansas City Royals. Hernandez came out of the game with virus-like symptoms after giving up two runs on three hits.
Astros look to make it 8 straight on Saturday.