James Wood wasted no time. The Nationals outfielder turned a Tatsuya Imai slider into a first-inning home run, and the Astros spent the rest of the night looking like they might pay for it.
They didn’t. Houston survived a shaky start and a bullpen marathon to beat Washington 6-3, evening the series a night after Mike Burrows’ rotation spot became the latest headache in a Houston season full of them.
Imai never found his footing. A trainer visited him in the first inning to check a finger issue that may have played a role in his uneven command the rest of the way.
He walked three, scattered four hits, and threw 84 pitches across just under four innings. By the time he left in the fourth, it marked the seventh outing this season in which he failed to reach the fifth inning.
His ERA now sits at 6.06—a number that, paired with Burrows’ banishment to Sugar Land on Tuesday, makes Houston’s rotation problem impossible to ignore heading into Wednesday.
Houston got almost nothing from the top of its order—Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez, and Isaac Paredes combined for two hits in fifteen trips to the plate.
It was the bottom of the lineup that did the damage instead. Nick Allen turned a one-run deficit into a lead with a two-run single in the fourth, making it 3-2, then Christian Vázquez cashed in behind him with a sacrifice fly.
Vázquez wasn’t done. He drove in another run with a single in the sixth. Christian Walker had a big night out of the cleanup spot, and Cam Smith and Zach Dezenzo chipped in from behind him, combining for four free passes that put runners on for Houston all night.
Altuve got his moment in the eighth, a solo homer that padded the lead to four.
Houston needed six relievers to get there. Steven Okert wriggled out of a fifth-inning jam, and Enyel De Los Santos and Bryan King followed with zeros of their own.
Bryan Abreu threw a scoreless eighth in his fourth appearance in a three-week stretch, the Astros trusting him again after a run of inactivity since June 20. Then things got tense again: Alimber Santa, freshly summoned from Triple-A to replace Burrows, gave up a homer and a single in the ninth.
Josh Hader had to bail him out, loading the bases before striking out Dylan Crews to end it—his 10th save without a blown chance all season.
Houston and Washington play the series finale Wednesday, with Spencer Arrighetti taking the mound looking to close out the series win.
