MLB TRADE NEWS: According to  MLB insider report this evening that the Houston Astros made a surprise trade this evening when they signed Texas Rangers sensational world-class first starting pitcher to a $189.7 million contract. However…

The Astros traverse .500 for the first time this year and are only 3.5 games behind in the AL West race.

What a rollercoaster season. Despite a continued epidemic of injuries, everything that was going wrong for the Astros in April is going right for the Astros in a 17-8 June. The Astros organization is so bereft of viable, healthy starting pitching options that today they had to rely on the opener gambit against one of the hottest and most stacked offenses in baseball.

And it worked!

And a team that earlier in the season couldn’t get a clutch RBI to save its season today was 7-16 with runners in scoring position, including 5-7 in extra innings.

The fire is burning again. The Astros are above .500 for the first time this year. And the Seattle Mariners must be looking nervously over their shoulder as their traditional nemesis is only 3.5 games behind them for first place in the AL West.

The Astros scored first in the second inning on a just-barely, wind-driven solo home run by Jon Singleton, his sixth of the year.

They added two more in the fourth inning starting with an Alex Bregman double and an RBI Yainer Diaz single, his team-leading 41st RBI of the season.

Yordan Alvarez, who walked ahead of Diaz, scored on a Jake Meyers groundout. The Astros added their fourth run in the fifth on a Jose Altuve bloop RBI single, scoring Mauricio Dubon.

(Altuve would later be ejected for disputing a non-call when a hit ball that clearly hit his foot was called a ball-in-play resulting in out three of the seventh inning.)

Using the opener gambit, the Astros staff miraculously held the Mets scoreless and hitless for five innings starting with 3.1 innings by Shawn Dubin, and 1.2 from rookie Bryan King. In the second inning, Dubin was particularly fortunate, getting three outs on balls hit harder than 105 MPH. Great defense helped a little too. But in the sixth, the Mets finally broke through against Seth Martinez, the big hit a two-run double by Mark Vientos.

 

In the seventh, the Mets got to the heart of the Astros bullpen with a two-run homer by Brandon Nimmo against Bryan Abreu, who hadn’t pitched before today for nine days, tying the score at four each.

The Astros wasted an opportunity in the eighth after Yainer Diaz slashed a line drive double to the wall in right field, a home run if it were hit at the park across the Hudson in the Bronx. However, Diaz was stranded by a Jake Meyers strikeout at the hands of Astros product Adrian Houser.

Diaz appears to be fulfilling the potential we glimpsed in him last year. In June, not including today’s 3-5 showing, Diaz is hitting .347, with a 157 wRC+.