TAMPA -- Even after playing a significant role in Monday’s victory over the Rays, Astros right-hander Bryan King kept it real when speaking about the life of a reliever.
“In this game, you always kind of know that there’s going to be good days and there’s going to be bad days,” he said.
While the series opener was the former, Tuesday’s game was the latter for the relief corps. With their top three bullpen arms unavailable, the Astros squandered a late lead and were ultimately walked off by the Rays in a 3-2 defeat at George M. Steinbrenner Field.
“You’ve got to play [for] 27 outs, and we do a really good job of doing that,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “Just today, it didn’t go our way.”
The Astros traditionally turn to King, Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader to rack up those final outs, just as they did Monday. That trio has been instrumental in creating one of baseball’s best bullpens. But with King having thrown 27 pitches on Monday, and Abreu and Hader having worked on three of the past four days, Espada indicated that none of them were options to guard a 2-0 lead in the eighth inning.
So the skipper turned to Steven Okert. The left-hander has been stellar in his own right, boasting a 1.23 ERA and a 0.55 WHIP over 22 innings. But he wasn’t his sharpest on this night.
Okert began the eighth by hitting Curtis Mead on the back foot with an 0-2 slider. That preceded a single from Yandy Díaz, who was lifted for pinch-runner Kameron Misner. Following a one-out double steal by Misner and José Caballero, Okert left a slider up to Jonathan Aranda, who roped it into right field to tie the game.
“You're going to have bad days,” Okert said. “You just hope those ones don't cost you the game like it did tonight.”
Taylor Walls’ sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth against right-hander Kaleb Ort drove in the winning run. It was Houston’s second walk-off defeat of the season, joining its April 9 loss to the Mariners. The Astros are now 25-2 when leading at any point after the seventh inning.
That late-inning lapse left Brandon Walter with a no-decision. The southpaw shined in what was his Astros debut, his first Major League start, and his first big league appearance since 2023. The 28-year-old shut down Tampa Bay over five scoreless innings, allowed only three hits and struck out five batters.
“I thought Walter threw the ball really, really well,” Espada said. “Gave us five strong innings. … I thought he handled the situation very well.”
Walter’s previous experience in the Majors came during nine relief outings with the Red Sox two seasons ago. He recorded a 6.26 ERA in that stint and then missed all of 2024 while rehabbing a left shoulder injury. The Astros signed Walter as a free agent in August of last year, and he earned his opportunity in The Show by recording a 2.27 ERA over 35 2/3 innings at Triple-A Sugar Land this season.
“It means a lot,” Walter said about his chance to get back to the bigs. “I give a lot of credit to this group here and the [organization] for giving me the chance, signing me onto a Minor League deal when I didn't really know where I was at in my career.
“With the injury, and in my last healthy season, I didn't have a lot of success, so I give a lot of credit to people here that helped me through it, kept me healthy, and kind of let me reinvent myself on the mound. It's been successful.”
Part of that reinvention includes pulling back on his sinker usage and upping his frequency of cutters. Those pitches were key to his success as he didn’t allow any baserunner to advance past second base. Walter threw 80 pitches -- one more than his season-high with Sugar Land -- and 54 strikes.
“The game plan was just to attack the zone and throw a lot of strikes,” Walter said. “Get some quick outs and take advantage of some strikeout opportunities. And I was able to do that.”