Grand finish: Jose Altuve’s slam lifts Astros past Rangers in 10 innings

They didn’t look it for nine innings at Minute Maid Park, instead on the verge of surrendering another loss to a sub .500 team. 

Luckily, there was a 10th. 

The Astros’ blistering offense, which two days earlier blitzed the Twins for 14 runs on 20 hits, stalled to a crawling pace against the Rangers. Houston put three runners on base and just one in scoring position through five innings. Cautious base running and bad luck did not help matters. 

Myles Straw could not advance past second base on back-to-back outfield hits in the third inning. Jose Altuve narrowly beat out a triple play only to run into Michael Brantley’s ground ball on the base paths for the third out. 

When Yordan Alvarez singled to right field in the sixth inning, the Astros held Brantley at third base rather than run on Joey Gallo, who is known for his strong outfield throws. Yuli Gurriel got the Astros on the board with a sac fly, but Carlos Correa grounded out to end the inning and strand two men. 

The Astros were down to their final out when Correa blasted a solo home run 377 feet to right field to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth and extend a lifeline. Altuve grabbed it, pulled, and delivered a walk-off grand slam in extra innings. 

The Astros recovered from a slow start and wound up with a 6-3 win in 10 innings in the series opener against the Rangers. 

The walkoff grand slam was the first for the Astros since Brian Bogusevic — who now provides analysis on their pregame and postgame TV shows — did it Aug. 16, 2011, against the Cubs. 

Tuesday’s lackluster offensive opening somewhat dulled the shine of starting pitcher Lance McCullers Jr., making his return from a rehab stint. In his first appearance since going on the injured list May 23, the righthander hurled a solid four frames but exited in the fifth inning after loading the bases. 

The Astros had always planned to pull McCullers early and piggyback Jake Odorizzi, so McCullers’ 77 pitches over 4 ⅓ innings translated to a solid outing. He allowed two runs (one earned), three hits and three walks while inducing three swinging strikeouts. 

Odorizzi, in his fourth career relief appearance and first since Sept. 24, 2013, put in four scoreless innings of work. He struck out three of the 14 batters he faced and yielded two hits with no walks. 

The Rangers drew first blood in the top of the fourth when Gallo ripped an RBI double 109.6 mph off the bat to the bullpen wall in right-center field with no outs. McCullers allowed two more batters to reach but worked around traffic to produce three outs, including an infield hopper the pitcher fielded and threw to Alex Bregman to tag a sliding Gallo.

In the fifth inning McCullers issued a one-out walk and got behind in the count 2-0 against Brock Holt, inspiring a mound visit. After three more pitches, Holt walked anyway. Adolis Garcia hit a ground ball expertly fielded by Correa, but umpires said Altuve didn’t get his foot on second base before nearly getting taken out by a sliding Holt. The call stood after review and Altuve was charged with an error, loading the bases with one out as the Astros summoned Blake Taylor from the bullpen for cleanup duty. 

McCullers departed with a 52-percent strike rate, though 12 of his last 15 pitches were balls. 

Taylor proceeded to walk in a run on four pitches. He recovered to strike out the next batter and Brantley made an impressive catch at the back of the warning track to end the inning with the score 2-0, Rangers. 

For a while, it seemed that was all the visiting team needed. 

After Gurriel’s sacrifice fly in the sixth, the Astros went down in order in the seventh and eighth innings. They were trending that way again until Correa’s deadline-defying bomb. 

Closer Ryan Pressly punched out back-to-back hitters to start the 10th inning, and it looked like the final out was in the bag when Nate Lowe struck a line drive to third base. But the ball glanced off of Bregman’s glove and Holt streaked home to give the Rangers a 3-2 lead. 

With Chas McCormick starting as the runner on second, Straw drew a walk. Jason Castro, pinch hitting for Martín Maldonado, walked to load the bases. 

Altuve swung and missed at the first pitch he saw from Demarcus Evans, a diving cutter. He tightened his grip, swung at the next one and watched it sail into the Crawford Boxes, the franchise player putting the exclamation point on an otherwise uneventful midseason game.