Spencer Arrighetti had something to prove Wednesday night, and he proved it in style.
Making his season debut after being left off the Opening Day roster, the 26-year-old right-hander threw six innings of one-run ball, striking out ten and scattering two hits as the Houston Astros defeated the Colorado Rockies 3-1 at Daikin Park. It was just the third time this season an Astros starter has worked through six innings.
The start came only a few weeks after Arrighetti and his wife welcomed twin boys into the world—a moment that cost him some spring training time and contributed to his demotion to Triple-A Sugar Land to open the year. Wednesday, he made both milestones count.
“I mean, you get optioned, you kind of start to have some doubts,” Arrighetti said. “I feel like I answered some of those doubts for myself tonight. It’s really personal to me to have that kind of success to be able to give the team a chance to win, to give the bullpen a chance to kind of sit back a little bit.”
His curveball was particularly sharp, generating 16 of his 20 whiffs with the pitch. Manager Joe Espada took notice.
“A ton of swing and misses,” Espada said. “He gave us a big boost. That was a big start at the right time.”
The Astros needed no hits to take the lead. Colorado starter Jose Quintana walked the first three batters he faced—Carlos Correa, Yordan Alvarez, and Isaac Paredes—before yielding sacrifice flies to Christian Walker and Cam Smith that staked Houston to a 2-0 lead after one inning.
Alvarez took care of the rest in the third, launching a solo home run, his seventh of the season, off a Quintana slurve at 107.5 mph and 375 feet into the right field stands. It was another missile from a man who has been the best hitter in baseball through the first three weeks of the season.
The blast also debuted the Astros’ answer to the Rockies’ purple fur coat: an Astros cowboy hat, very Houston, that greeted Alvarez in the dugout after he crossed the plate.
Coming off a 2025 in which injuries limited him to 48 games and six home runs, Alvarez is making up for lost time. Through 19 games this season he is hitting .333 with seven home runs, 17 RBIs, and a 1.250 OPS.
“I’ve put in a lot of work on my hitting,” Alvarez said. “Trying to swing at good pitches and things are turning out good for me.”
Arrighetti’s win appeared in jeopardy in the seventh when Steven Okert got the first out before allowing a single to Brenton Doyle. Espada called on Bryan Abreu, who entered with a ghastly ERA after a brutal start to the season. Abreu issued a walk but a wild pitch advanced Doyle to third, before inducing Rumfield to ground out and end the threat. It was his second straight scoreless outing, a potential sign that the hard-throwing right-hander is finding his footing. Enyel De Los Santos closed out the ninth for his second consecutive save.
Yainer Diaz also had a quietly significant night behind the plate, successfully challenging multiple calls including a crucial one in the fourth inning that turned a potential walk into an inning-ending strikeout with the bases loaded in a 3-1 game.
“Yainer Diaz was very precise in high-leverage moments,” Espada said. “It was big challenges in meaningful spots.”
The Astros, who have won two straight after an eight-game losing streak, go for the sweep Thursday with Ryan Weiss making his first big league start.
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