This time a year ago, the Astros had arguably their greatest regular season moment of the 2017 season. After this game, I don’t know anyone who didn’t have the confidence that they could make a run at the World Series.
The Houston Astros looked dead in the water on Monday. It seemed like one of those games where it would maybe be most beneficial to the team to throw out the white flag and conserve the bullpen for the rest of the series. The Astros bats would have no such thing, and exploded in the late innings once again.
The Astros struck first in the fourth inning, thanks to a 450ft bomb from Carlos Correa, his 9th home run of the season. They added another run when Carlos Beltran reached third on an error, then scored soon after.
In the fifth inning, the Twins came storming back scoring 7 runs off of Brad Peacock and Jordan Jankowski, highlighted by a two run homer by Miguel Sano. Minnesota would add another run in the bottom of the 7th to make the score 8-2 in favor of the Twins.
Then came the top of the 8th. Facing a 6 run deficit, the Astros went on to score 4 runs before recording the second out in the inning, a fielders choice by Evan Gattis that could have easily been a single but the shortstop made a phenomenal diving play and threw to second for the second out of the inning. The Astros would go on to score 5 runs with two outs, capped by a three run homer by Carlos Beltran. In the ninth, Alex Bregman hit a 400+ foot two run bomb, continuing his recent hot streak. Carlos Correa grounded into a fielders choice in the inning, which was on top of his 3 hit night before that point. Correa is now hitting .311, which is higher than even Jose Altuve, who is hitting a “meager” .308. Correa has been an absolute monster of late, totaling 15 hits and 3 home runs over the last 10 games alone, before which he was hitting .294.
After their 16-8 win on Monday, the Astros now sit at 36-16 and hold a 11 game lead in the AL West. On top of that, they hold a 3.5 game lead for the best record in baseball over the Colorado Rockies. The Astros play the Twins again Tuesday, and have an afternoon game against them as well on Wednesday. After that, it’s off to Arlington for a series against the hated Texas Rangers, who have floundered in the weeks after their 10 game win streak that got them within 5.5 games of first place at one point.