The Texas Rangers scored three runs while the Houston Astros scored four runs.
Eschewing the exchange of bizarre history that highlighted the first two games of this series, the Rangers and Astros instead settled into more standard fare at The Shed tonight with a low-scoring contest that sort of became a home run derby between each designated hitters for each squad.
Rangers starter Jacob deGrom mostly recovered from his terrible trip to Disneyland where he allowed six runs in three innings in his last start in Anaheim. Tonight the veteran went six innings and allowed two runs on four hits with a walk and six strikeouts. However, twice the Rangers took one-run leads in the early innings only for Houston to immediately tie the game the next half inning.
The second time that happened came via a Yordan Alvarez solo home run to continue both deGrom’s inability to keep the ball in the yard and Alvarez’s reign of terror against Texas (more on that in a moment). Then again, a solo home run to Alvarez probably shouldn’t be evidence that deGrom is still dinger prone as there’s virtually no one Alvarez wouldn’t take deep if they were wearing RANGERS across their chest.
The game stayed tied through the middle innings until it got to the bullpens when left-handed pitcher Tyler Alexander was tasked with tackling Alvarez to lead off the eighth. Instead, Alvarez hit one about 450 ft for his second solo home run of the game, which gave Houston their first lead of the night.
That lead was doubled when Alexander fielded a bunt with a man on and threw it down the right field line to allow a second run to score in the eighth. That error proved costly as the Astros cashed in on that insurance when Joc Pederson made it a 4-3 game with a solo home run in the bottom of the inning.
Not even the cavalry could save Texas with career .619 OPS hitter Nicky Lopez going hitless in his debut. 4-3 was as close as the Rangers got with the loss leaving them trailing in this series ahead of tomorrow’s finale.
Player of the Game: You can pretty much pencil in a few Yordan Alvarez runs each night when the Rangers play the Astros but the Rangers tried to counter Houston’s prolific DH with one who has been heating up a little.
Pederson also hit two solo home runs tonight and went 3-for-4 while scoring all three of Texas’ runs. Unfortunately for him and the Rangers, he was basically the lone star for Texas.
Up Next: The Rangers and Astros will close out this four-game series with RHP Nathan Eovaldi set to make the start for Texas against RHP Spencer Spaghetti Arrighetti for Houston.
The Thursday evening first pitch from The Shed is scheduled for 7:05 pm CDT and you can view it via the Rangers Sports Network.
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