Lyles Lowers ERA in Loss to Nationals

Well yea, that headline is a bit misleading. Not often will a pitcher give up as many runs as innings pitched and lower his ERA, but Jordan Lyles did that today. Lyles pitched 3 innings, giving up 6 hits, 3 runs, and 2 strikeouts in today’s 9-7 loss to the Nationals. Lyles dropped his ERA from 25.20 to 19.13. Lyles seemed to be cruising early as he had a quick 1-2-3 first inning. After the first, Lyles struggled a bit giving up 1 run in the 2nd, and 2 runs in the 3rd.

Just like Lyles in the first, the Astros bats were great and put up 4 runs early. Fernando Martinez hit an RBI single, and Maxwell hit a triple that gave the Astros an early 4-0 lead. The Astros scored another 3 runs in the game, thanks to the big bats of Jose Altuve and Brandon Laird. Altuve went 3-5 on the day, hitting a double and scoring 3 runs. Laird homered in the game, and will give the Astros another player they will have to think about when deciding on the final roster.

Even though the Astros bats had a good game (7 runs on 12 hits), the pitching wasn’t quite there to get the win. Hector Ambriz came into the 4th inning and gave up a run. In the 5th Erik Bedard was able to pitch his way out of a jam. After giving up a leadoff double to former Rice star Anthony Rendon, he then walked Chris Marrero to have runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs. Bedard was able to get out of that jam striking out the side. The Astros got another scoreless frame from Chia-Jen Lo, before Dallas Keuchel came into the game. Keuchel gave up 5 hits and 3 runs in his 2 innings pitched, including giving up a 2-run home run to Anthony Rendon with 2 outs and an 0-2 count. Josh Fields finished the game giving up 3 hits and 2 runs in his lone inning pitched.

The Astros hope for a better result tomorrow when they face the Nationals again at 12:05 PM Central.