Orioles slugger hitting impossible pitch for game-winning grand slam burns Astros

There's no use in sugarcoating it; Friday's 7-5 Houston Astros' loss to the Baltimore Orioles was a gut punch.

Houston got off to a strong start and tagged Orioles starter Cade Povich for four runs in the third inning. Jose Altuve launched a two-run shot to get Houston on the board, and Jeremy Peña and Jake Meyers both contributed RBI hits to get the Astros a solid early lead.

But things turned very bad, very quickly, for the Astros. With the Orioles trailing 5-2 in the bottom of the eighth inning, Anthony Santander came to the plate and clubbed a go-ahead, game-winning grand slam off Astros reliever Bryan Abreu.

Bryan Abreu's eighth-inning implosion vs. Orioles highlights Astros' bullpen struggles

In fairness, the pitch that Santander hit for the grand slam wasn’t a bad fastball. In fact, it was a very good one. It was at eyeball level outside of the strike zone, in an area where very few hitters are able to do serious damage. According to Jake Rill of MLB.com, it was the ninth-highest pitch hit for a home run in MLB this season, and the highest by an Orioles player. The fact that Santander was able to get ahold of it speaks more to his hitting ability than anything else.

"He didn't make a bad pitch," Altuve told reporters after the loss. "Santander has been hot, he's been hitting a lot of homers. Sometimes, you have to give credit to the other guy. The pitch was up and in, and honestly, I don't know how he hit that ball. He's a great player, so he deserved it."

Altuve is right; Santander has indeed been hitting a lot of homers. Friday's slam was his 38th longball of the season, the third-most in MLB behind only New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge (49) and Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani (40).

Abreu did put himself in that situation by loading the bases with no outs, so he's not completely blameless here. Thankfully, bullpen enforcements are on the way for the Astros. Kaleb Ort is set to return from the paternity list Saturday, and 2022 World Series champ Héctor Neris is coming back to Houston after being released by the Chicago Cubs earlier this week.

Add in the fact that Ryan Pressly is making good progress toward his return from the injured list, and Houston looks to be in pretty good shape down the stretch. The hope will be that the Astros can stay healthy and do some damage against AL opponents in their march toward the playoffs. As they enter their toughest stretch of the season, they can ill afford another late-inning bullpen implosion.

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