The Pecan Park Eagle

Alden Gonzalez and Brian McTaggert of MLB.COM covered the miraculous recovery by the Astros after two were out in the 9th at Anaheim yesterday about as well as anyone could describe it.

http://m.angels.mlb.com/news/article/149191320/mike-trout-homers-on-first-pitch-vs-astros

That Astros rally for 5 runs a crucial win against the worst odds in baseball ranks right up there with this ancient fan as one of the most exciting things we’ve ever seen an Astros club do, well, you tell me, can you imagine any better time for it to happen. Just as it appears we are going be swept by the Angels and down to 1-5 on the west coast part of this killer road trip, a miracle arrival of good luck and magical bats (the same ones that have been sorely missing) arrives together to paint a rainbow on the horizon before the team’s flight east to Arlington and the 4-game showdown with the Texas Rangers.

Twice those Angels in the outfield on Sunday afternoon came within inches of capturing George Springer’s triple to right center and within a glove scrape miss of Jed Lowrie’s 3-run homer down the right field line. And, in between those two breaks, a ball traveling at bullet-train speed off the bat of rookie sensation Carlos Correa got stuck in the glove of an Angels infielder for a trapped ball infield single that could not be removed to make a throw to first for the final out.  Even earlier than Lowrie’s Angels-killer blow off Huston Street, one of the toughest  closers in the game, Preston Tucker had started things off with 2 outs by blasting a Street pitch deep into the right field stands to reduce the Angels lead to 3-1. Then Jose Altuve singled in Springer from third to pull the Astros even closer at a 3-2 deficit. Altuve then advanced to 2nd base on Correa’s infield smash that got stuck in the glove of Angels infielder Taylor Featherston.

Lowrie finished the job as a left-handed pinch hitter for slugger Evan Gattis, even drawing his margin of error down to two strikes from Street before he delivered the 3-run high floating homer down the line that apparently even made a scraping sound off the glove of Angels right fielder Kole Calhoun as it eluded his catch before falling safely over the wall. Calhoun said in another interview that he either felt or heard or thought the ball skimmed off his glove before it left the yard. Whether it did or not for sure, we may never know, but Calhoun was the only one close enough on the field to have sensed anything at that moment in time.

The Jed Lowrie 3-run homer made the score now 5-3, Houston, a margin that would survive the carnival of joy that was then the state of the Houston Astros dugout on its way to remaining as the final score.

The whole thing played out like a surreal reminder of the wonderful 1951 original version of the baseball movie, “Angels in the Outfield,” only this time, the spiritual angels weren’t there to save the pennant hopes of the Pittsburgh Pirates movie good guys – and they sure as heck were not there in Anaheim yesterday to save the 2015 Angels.

The incredible win by Astros kept the Houston Astros 1.5 games up on the Texas Rangers as the start a 4-game series in Arlington today against their too-close-for-comfort tracker foe – and it dropped the Los Angeles Angels back to a 4.5 game deficit in the AL West.

Keep it up, Astros, but please spare us our hearts by not waiting until there are two outs in the 9th to start getting the job done on an everyday basis.

Thank you very much, Astros – even if Sunday was the result of some kind of deal that Manager A.J. Hinch worked out with the real life spiritual angels in the outfield and infield at Anaheim!