HOUSTON -- Astros starter Spencer Arrighetti held the Mets to one run and one hit in six stellar innings Saturday night in a terrific start to his sophomore season, but the first question he fielded from a reporter after the game was about his lone blemish.
¡°Coming in hot,¡± Arrighetti joked.
Arrighetti was brimming with frustration when Mets outfielder Jose Siri raced home from third base for the game-tying run in the sixth inning after the pitcher took too long to throw a comebacker to first base. He was eventually able to brush it off, though, after Yordan Alvarez drilled an RBI double in the sixth to break the tie and send the Astros to a 2-1 win and series victory at Daikin Park.
¡°I feel like I really grinded up to that point in the outing to keep the game where it was and I want to call it a mental mistake, but I still did a lot of things right on the play,¡± Arrighetti said. ¡°That was what stung even worse. I think one extra step goes a long way when a guy¡¯s that quick. It took some nerve to even take off in the first place.¡±
Welcome to the Jose Siri experience.
Arrighetti sent the Mets down in order in the second, third, fourth and fifth innings after a 21-pitch first, with Juan Soto¡¯s double in the first accounting for the only hit. Arrighetti walked Siri -- the Mets¡¯ nine-hole hitter -- to start the sixth and watched him steal second and take third on a fly ball with one out.
Soto hit a sharp one-hopper to Arrighetti¡¯s left that he fielded cleanly. He quickly looked toward Siri at third base, briefly freezing him. That¡¯s where things went awry.
¡°When I checked him, he made eye contact with me,¡± he said. ¡°He was waiting for me to turn around. It kind of felt like it, but I felt Soto was slow out of the box and felt I had time.¡±
Arrighetti turned toward first base and took a few steps before lobbing the ball to Christian Walker. Siri, meanwhile, took off down the line and slid home safely ahead of the throw from Walker to tie the game. Arrighetti was visibly frustrated on the mound and later in the dugout after he finished the inning with two more outs.
¡°I didn¡¯t realize that one extra step I took was going to mean that much,¡± he said. ¡°You never want the first [run] to cross the plate that way when it¡¯s in my control and I would like to keep it that way. Yes, I was frustrated.¡±
Astros manager Joe Espada took time in the dugout to go over the situation with Arrighetti and what he could have done differently.
¡°He came in the dugout and said, ¡®Joe, I stopped the runner,¡¯¡± Espada said. ¡°I said, ¡®Yes, you did. You did the right thing, but once you do that, just give the ball up. The runner is going to hold his secondary [lead] and after that your back is towards him.¡¯ He¡¯ll learn from that, but I like how he knew what we needed to do. He just needed to give the ball up. Aside from that, he was outstanding.¡±
Siri¡¯s mad dash tied the game, but Alvarez made a winner out of Arrighetti when he rocketed a two-out double to right field with two outs in the sixth -- Alvarez's first hit of the season -- off Mets starter Griffin Canning to score Isaac Paredes from first base.
¡°I really feel like I competed really well today,¡± Arrighetti said. ¡°I feel like my whole game plan was to get us back in the dugout as quickly as possible. I was really happy with the rhythm I was able to get into. I¡¯ve never been here before [on opening weekend] and it kind of felt like a playoff series. The stadium was buzzing at 5 p.m. The game didn¡¯t start until 6:15. I was kind of soaking it up. I feel like a lot of things were really positive for me today.¡±
The Astros entered Saturday as the only team in the Major Leagues without an extra-base hit, but Jeremy Pe?a¡¯s line-drive homer into the first row of the Crawford Boxes in the fifth ended that drought and made it 1-0. That would have been all Arrighetti and relievers Bryan King, Bryan Abreu and Josh Hader needed had Siri not provided a teachable moment for the young pitcher.