The Angels rallied in the 5th, allowed a rally in the 8th & failed to rally in the 9th, Houston takes series

Angels 5 Astros 7

It’s a rough game, baseball. It’s especially rough when its in the mood to tease; take for instance this Sunday afternoon rubber match between the Angels and Astros. It was a game that the Astros appeared to have in the bag, but then the home town heroes, just like they did the night before, roared back with a big, momentum-shifting inning and took the lead.

That’s the tease, though. Talk about building you up...

Yes, Ricky Nolasco was on the mound today, and just a few minutes after I heard Terry Smith say something about the weather being great for home runs and Nolasco was pitching, the dude gives up a two-run homer to Jose Altuve. Aye yi yi.

The Houston hit parade didn’t exactly end there, and they would tack on a couple more in the fourth, thanks to Brian McCann and Marwin Gonzalez, but Nolasco did flash some skill here and there...if it were those home runs, though.

So it’s 4-0 Houston, and then in the fifth, the Halos get a big rally going, where they loaded the bases up, culminating with Ben Revere getting a double and clearing them out. That saw the Angels within reach of the Astros, and then in the very next frame, Luis Valbuena hit his 17th jack of the year, this one a 2-run shot, which put the Halos up 5-4. Man, were they really going to do this again, and add to their already-league-leading 4+ run deficit comeback mark?

No, they weren’t. That’s the tease. In the eighth inning, with the bases loaded, Brian McCann lit up the Angels pitching staff again, this time getting a triple that scored three runs and gave Houston a 7-5 advantage. That was it, there would be no more tilting in this one. This game was settle on that score, no matter how unsettling.

You know what? Houston is going through some stuff right now...the actual city, not the team...so I will just turn the page, as ol’ Mike would say, and tip my cap, and move on from this series. It was so, so close, though. But forget baseball; there are people back where the Astros came from, and they’re worried sick about the disaster that they’re going to be living through for the next handful of days.

Here’s a place to go to learn about what you can do to help the city of Houston right now. That’s how we get by, with the help of our friends and fellow Americans.