PHOENIX -- Astros manager Joe Espada has so much confidence in his players and his team’s winning process that he had no trouble sitting star second baseman Jose Altuve and hotshot rookie Cam Smith for rest on Wednesday, despite already being down five starting position players because of injuries.
No matter who the Astros bring up from Triple-A or what role they’re asked to perform, they are somehow finding a way to contribute to an improbable season that led to Houston (60-42) claiming a share of the best record in the American League after a 4-3 win at Chase Field to sweep the Diamondbacks.
“We’re really happy about that, but there’s still a lot of baseball to play,” Espada said.
The Astros got seven innings of one-run ball from lefty starter Brandon Walter, who was a non-roster invite to camp and thrust into the rotation because of injuries. Houston sparked a ninth-inning rally with back-to-back bunt singles by Zack Short, who spent most of the season at Triple-A, and Taylor Trammell, who missed four months with a calf injury.
The game-winning run was driven home in the ninth by a more well-known name, especially to D-backs fans. Christian Walker, in his first series back in Arizona since signing with the Astros in December, singled up the middle to score Short from second base with one out to break a 3-3 tie.
“We’re only going to keep getting better as guys come back off the IL and we’re having fun. We trust each other and we know it’s hard to beat the Astros, for sure,” said Walker, who went 6-for-14 in the series against his former club.
Incredibly, the Astros and their patchwork roster have surpassed the Tigers and are tied with the Blue Jays for the best record in the American League, with Houston having won four in a row and Detroit dropping nine of its last 10. They also opened up a six-game lead atop the AL West over the second-place Mariners, who just lost two of three to the Brewers.
“We’re all in,” Espada said. “I trust those guys. I’m watching them out there and they’re playing their asses off. As a manager, that’s all you can ask for. They’re leaving everything on the field and when you have a ton of guys pulling together and rowing the same way, that’s what you want. We’re going to grind it to the end.”
After the D-backs scored twice off reliever Bennett Sousa to tie the game in the eighth, Short and Trammell both beat out bunt singles to start the ninth. Rookie Brice Matthews also had a sacrifice push bunt in the eighth that preceded a Mauricio Dubón RBI single that made it 3-1.
“We tried every trick in the book today -- we tried to bunt, we tried to steal bases,” Espada said. “We tried to find a way to create runs and get runs across the board to give our bullpen an opportunity to win the game for us.”
Short said third-base coach Tony Perezchica, who was the third-base coach for the D-backs from 2017-24, thought it would be a good time for a bunt to start the ninth. Third baseman Eugenio Suárez was playing even with the base on the first pitch of the at-bat, but dropped back for the second. Short put down the bunt on the third pitch and barely beat the throw at first.
“It wasn’t where I was trying to go with it, but it’s a tough pitch to do it,” Short said. “It was up and away and I figured it was my only chance.”
Arizona’s Ketel Marte crushed the first pitch Walter threw in the first inning for a homer -- marking the 14th consecutive game in which Astros opponents have scored first -- but the D-backs got nothing else against Walter, whose cutter to right-handers and three-quarter arm slot creates a level of deception.
Walter began the season in Triple-A (alongside Short, Trammell and Matthews) and takes pride in the fact that the group has come to the big leagues and played a positive role for a team that has 17 players on the injured list and has seen its depth tested.
“A lot of these faces are familiar, even though they weren’t here in the beginning of the season,” Walter said. “They’re all good players. Just because they’re not the ‘first man up’ in the beginning of the season doesn’t mean they’re not good players. Everybody’s proven they’re worthy of being in the big leagues and being contributors."