Game Recap #18 San Diego Padres @ Houston Astros

Starting next season, the Houston Astros will be starting anew after making the transfer from the National League over to the American League. This move will bring new features to baseball, such as year-round interleague play, new scheduling formats, and for the Astros, a new set of opponents. Gone will be the days like today, with the Astros hosting the San Diego Padres. Hopefully joining them will be someone who is starting their own path, their pitcher Jordan Lyles, who opposes career reliever and minor leaguer Kip Wells on the mound. Both pitchers held their own pretty well early on, until Lyles gave up a third inning solo home run to Will Venable, for a 1-0 Padres lead. Jed Lowrie avenged the run with a solo shot of his own, taking Wells deep (pun not intended) in the bottom of the third. The pitchers returned to form in the fourth inning, but struggled a bit in the fifth. Wells was far worse here, allowing Lowrie to reach on a single and then erring on a throw to get Brian Bogusevic aboard and Lowrie over to third base. Another miscue, a wild pitch, brought Lowrie home, and Chris Johnson's single drove in Bogusevic. The rally was capped off by a two-run J.D. Martinez home run to finish Johnson's trip. Wells was done after this inning, surrendering seven hits and three walks to produce five runs, two earned, while striking out two. The Padres bullpen used two more pitchers to finish things off, with Nick Vincent and Alex Hinshaw allowing just one walk between them over three innings of work. Lyles, on the other hand, was done after 6 1/3 innings, giving up six hits and four walks to go with one earned run and four strikeouts. Fernando Abad was handed the ball next and he worked cleanly in his 1 2/3 innings, but David Carpenter made things interesting in the ninth inning. After striking out Yonder Alonso, Carpenter gave up a single to Venable and walked Cameron Maybin. Brett Myers was called on to work out of a jam, giving up a Carlos Quentin fly out to center that moved both runners into scoring position, before Chase Headley singled them in (credited to Carpenter), but Headley would not come around despite Myers loading the bases by a John Baker single and hitting Alexi Amarista. The final stood at 5-3, allowing Lyles to grab the win, Myers to turn in a sloppy but successful save, and Wells was the victim of the loss.

As a side note, the time on the road is start to catch up a little bit with me at least, hence the late posting of this game recap. Game 19 will be as close to on time as possible.