Spencer Arrighetti has been the one constant in a rotation that has been anything but, and on Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field he was at his best when the Astros needed it most.
Arrighetti held the Chicago Cubs scoreless across five innings, striking out five and allowing just two hits, as Houston opened a three-game series with a 4-2 win. The Astros improved to 21-31. The Cubs dropped their sixth straight.
Arrighetti entered the day with a 1.50 ERA—the best among qualified starters in the American League—and did nothing to jeopardize it. He walked four batters and surrendered an error that put runners in scoring position in the third inning, but each time he found a way out. Through five innings, Chicago had yet to score. His ERA now stands at 1.32.
Christian Vázquez got the Astros on the board in the third, sending a solo home run to left-center off Jameson Taillon. The lead grew to 3-0 in the fourth on a series of productive outs and a two-out RBI single by Vázquez that scored Braden Shewmake, who had reached on a walk. Brice Matthews, inserted as a pinch-hitter in the fifth, added a run-scoring single to push the advantage to 4-0.
The Cubs made it interesting in the sixth. Steven Okert replaced Arrighetti and immediately ran into trouble, allowing a two-run home run to Pete Crow-Armstrong that cut the deficit to 4-2. Enyel De Los Santos came on and stranded the threat, then worked a clean seventh. Bryan Abreu started the eighth before running into back-to-back baserunners with two out, bringing Bryan King in to escape the jam, which he did, inducing a forceout on a grounder to third.
King stayed on to close out the ninth. Alex Bregman, facing his former club for the first time since signing with Chicago in the offseason, flew out to center fielder Jake Meyers for the second out. Ian Happ popped out to first to end it.
Taillon took the loss, charged with four runs on eight hits in 4.2 innings. Matthews finished 1-for-1 with an RBI in his pinch-hitting appearance and remained in the game at second base.
Game two of the series is Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Kai-Wei Teng is scheduled to start for Houston.
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