A chaotic week has the Houston Astros back in a familiar position — alone atop the American League West.
The Astros will look to continue a successful trek to the Big Apple on Friday night, when they face the New York Mets in the opener of a three-game interleague series.
Hunter Brown (3-3, 3.51 ERA) will start for the Astros against the Mets’ Christian Scott (4-3, 3.73) in a battle of right-handers.
Both teams played decisive series games in New York on Thursday night. The Astros earned a 5-1 win over the Yankees, and the Mets fell to the Milwaukee Brewers 8-2.
The series win vaulted the Astros (67-67) one game ahead of the Texas Rangers (66-68) in the AL West. Houston has won the division seven times in the last nine seasons, including four straight times before missing the playoffs last year for the first time since 2016.
The games against the Yankees were the Astros’ first since general manager Dana Brown and the team “mutually agreed to part ways,” per a news release announcing the transaction during Monday’s off-day.
Assistant general managers Charles Cook, Gavin Dickey and Connor Huff and Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell, a senior adviser, will report to owner Jim Crane for the remainder of the season.
The Astros scored 17 runs against the AL-wild card-leading Yankees after collecting just 27 while going 2-6 in their final eight games before Brown’s exit. Those games all came against the sub-.500 Seattle Mariners, Los Angeles Angels and the Athletics.
“We came here and took care of business, winning a series against a really good team,” Astros manager Joe Espada said of the set against the Yankees. “I thought there was some energy and we played really well.”
Meanwhile, consecutive lopsided losses to the Brewers stalled the momentum built this month by the Mets, who are 13-8 since the trade deadline despite dealing seven veterans.
New York’s surge included series wins over two contenders — the Cleveland Guardians and San Diego Padres. The Mets were positioned to win the set from the National League Central-leading Brewers after pulling out a 3-2, 10-inning win on Tuesday, but Milwaukee won the final two games by a combined 16-3.
The Mets had just three hits against Cy Young Award contender Jacob Misiorowski and a trio of relievers in the 8-2 loss on Thursday, though leadoff hitter A.J. Ewing had three hard-hit outs. Ewing lined out to open the game and struck out in the fourth before second baseman David Hamilton made an impressive play to rob Ewing of a hit on a 94.9 mph grounder in the sixth.
The rookie then lined out in the ninth to shortstop Cooper Pratt, who dived into shallow left field to make the catch.
“You don’t want to spin this to say there’s a lot of good things, but really tough day for A.J. Ewing,” Mets interim manager Andy Green said. “He did some good things. We didn’t have enough of those good things.”
Neither Brown nor Scott factored into the decision in their most recent starts last Saturday. Brown gave up one run over 5 2/3 innings in the Astros’ 4-3 loss to the Athletics while Scott allowed four runs over 4 2/3 innings as the Mets beat the Chicago White Sox 10-5.
Brown is 0-2 with a 6.17 ERA in two career starts against the Mets, and Scott has never opposed the Astros.
–Field Level Media
