Astros pull off another grand comeback to stun Rangers

The Texas Rangers’ offense has leaned on the home run to produce a bulk of their runs at an astonishingly high clip so far this season.

When the long balls aren’t flying, their offense has struggled to put consecutive hits together and the runs have been hard to come by.

And in games like Tuesday night’s against the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park, sometimes you’re just out-homered.

Marwin Gonzalez ripped a two-out grand slam in the eighth inning to lift the Astros to an 8-7 comeback win over the Rangers.

The Rangers homered five times but it wasn’t enough.

Keone Kela was on in relief in the eighth nursing a 5-3 lead when he got into early trouble with a double and walk. The Astros loaded the bases with one out before Kela induced a foul-out to third base.

That brought up Gonzalez, who ripped a 2-1, 95 mph fastball down the right-field line. Just like that, the Rangers’ two-run lead was a two-run deficit. George Springer later added a run with an RBI single against Jeremy Jeffress to make it 8-5.

“The eighth inning got away from us, the leadoff double and walk,” Rangers manager Jeff Banister said. “Kela got a little quick and a little over-anxious in the delivery, trying to go down and away and pulled the ball back over the plate and Gonzalez put a good swing on it.”

It’s the second consecutive game the Astros have exploded for five-run innings. They scored five in the seventh Monday to rally for a 6-2 win.

“They get you beat,” Banister said of the big innings.

Nomar Mazara’s two-run homer in the ninth gave the Astros a scare, but Will Harris replaced Luke Gregerson and closed it out with two strikeouts and a groundout, stranding the tying run at third base.

The night started with a Rangers’ power show. Rangers batters took their turns popping homers into the left-field Crawford Boxes.

Delino DeShields led off the game with his first homer of the season. Joey Gallo followed with a solo shot in the second to put the Rangers up 2-0. In the fourth, Elvis Andrus’ solo shot made it 3-0 and Jonathan Lucroy’s two-run homer had the Rangers sitting pretty with a 5-0 lead.

The Rangers have scored 66 of their 123 runs this season on home runs. That’s 53.6 percent of their offense. Twenty-three of their 40 homers, including three Tuesday night, have been solo shots.

Emergency starter Alex Claudio, who replaced Cole Hamels who was scratched moments before first pitch with a tight right oblique, pitched valiantly in his first major league start. He held the Astros to three runs on four hits, including two homers over four-plus innings.

The Rangers’ bullpen held the Astros off for three innings but they finally broke through with a five-run eighth.

“There’s nothing you can do about it. Just turn the page and get ready for tomorrow,” said Andrus, who was 1 for 3 with a homer and walk before Mazara’s two-run shot. “Today was an amazing game. That’s the thing about baseball, you can’t fall asleep as an offense a little bit, but we played hard and were able to come back late.”

This story was originally published May 2, 2017 at 10:53 PM with the headline "Astros pull off another grand comeback to stun Rangers."