A day after standing pat on pitching at the trade deadline, Houston got a reminder of why: Hayden Wesneski delivered his best start yet in his return from Tommy John surgery, and Taylor Trammell turned a tense back-and-forth into a laugher with a three-run homer, as the Astros beat the Toronto Blue Jays 7-2 on Tuesday at Daikin Park to even the series.
Toronto’s night unraveled early. Starter Trey Yesavage, working on a two-inning scoreless run, jogged out for the third and immediately looked off. He tried a single practice pitch, winced, and was pulled with what the Blue Jays announced as left knee discomfort, forcing Toronto into its bullpen far sooner than planned. Houston made the Blue Jays pay in the fourth, when Jose Altuve’s two-out infield single ignited a rally against reliever Chad Dallas; a walk to Trammell and RBI singles from Yainer Diaz and Cam Smith made it 2-0.
The Blue Jays clawed back in the fifth with an assist from an old friend. Myles Straw, once Houston’s own center fielder, doubled earlier in the night before really doing damage in the fifth: After Andrés Giménez singled through a shifted infield, Straw tripled over the head of his replacement in center, Daulton Varsho, to cut the deficit in half. He came around to score the tying run on a Wesneski wild pitch, knotting it at 2-2. Houston answered immediately. Altuve’s two-out single broke the tie, and Trammell followed by turning on a first-pitch curveball and depositing it into the right-field seats for a three-run shot, blowing the game open at 6-2. Altuve tacked on one more RBI single in the seventh.
Wesneski was the real story of the night. He worked six innings on just 78 pitches, allowing only the two fifth-inning runs, and got Toronto’s aggressive lineup chasing at a 44% clip while limiting hard contact all evening. It’s his second straight win in as many starts since coming back, part of what general manager Dana Brown has framed as an internal answer to the rotation’s needs—with Wesneski and Ronel Blanco, both fresh off elbow surgery, effectively functioning as Houston’s trade-deadline additions.
Altuve, quietly working through a rough first half by his own standards, keeps rounding into form at the right time: three hits Tuesday made it five multi-hit games in his last seven, an 11-for-28 tear that’s finally starting to look like the version of him Houston’s used to.
The win improved Houston to 59-56 on the season, winners of 12 of their last 14, and kept the Astros in first place in the AL West.
Houston looks to take the series Wednesday, with first pitch at 1:10 p.m. Central, when Hunter Brown faces Toronto right-hander Dylan Cease.
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