Dodgers blast Astros with homers
- Andy Pages hit three homers and drove in six on May 6 as the Dodgers crushed the Astros 12-2 at Daikin Park. - Houston unraveled behind Lance McCullers Jr., who allowed six runs in 2 2/3 innings and threw three wild pitches. - The game mattered beyond highlights — Houston fell to 15-23, and its pitching depth looked shakier than ever.
The game itself was loud. The bigger story was what the noise revealed. Los Angeles beat Houston 12-2 on Wednesday, May 6, and Andy Pages turned it into a personal demolition job with three home runs and six RBI. But the reason this one sticks is that the Dodgers didn’t just outslug the Astros — they exposed how fragile Houston’s pitching situation looks right now. (espn.com) ### Who actually blew this game open? Andy Pages did. He hit a three-run homer in the third, a two-run homer in the fifth, and then added a solo shot in the ninth for the first three-homer game of his career. Shohei Ohtani chipped in too — two hits, an RBI, and the end of an 0-for-18 skid — but Pages was the center of everything. (espn.com) ### Was it a slugfest from the start? Not really. Houston actually scored first on Brice Matthews’ leadoff homer off Tyler Glasnow in the first inning. Then Glasnow left before the second with low back pain, which could have flipped the game. Instead, the Dodgers patched the whole thing toget(espn.com)f the day. That’s a huge part of why the final score got so lopsided. (espn.com) ### So where did Houston lose control? With Lance McCullers Jr. — literally. The Dodgers scored their first run on a wild pitch in the second. Then they scored two more on wild pitches in the third. After that, Pages launched the three-run homer that made it 6-1. McCullers lasted only 2 2/3 i(espn.com) pitches for strikes. (espn.com) ### Why are the wild pitches such a big deal? Because they tell you this wasn’t just bad luck on a few hard-hit balls. Houston was giving away bases and runs before the Dodgers even needed to swing. MLB’s game log flagged it as a weird historical outlier too — the Dodgers became the first tea(espn.com)game via wild pitch. That is not normal baseball chaos. That is a pitcher who does not have command. (mlb.com) ### Did the Astros run out of arms? Basically, yes. By the ninth inning the game was so cooked that catcher César Salazar moved to the mound, and Pages hit his third homer off him. That image says plenty on its own. When a position player is finishing a home loss in early May, the bullpen is either depl(mlb.com)obably some mix of all three here. (espn.com) ### Why does this matter beyond one ugly afternoon? Because Houston was already in a hole. After the loss, the Astros were 15-23 and 4.5 games back in the AL West. One blowout does not define a season, but this one sharpened the outline of the problem — the Astros need reliable innings, and r(espn.com)r emergency coverage. (espn.com) ### And what about the Dodgers? They left Houston looking like the deeper, more resilient team. Their starter exited after one inning, Ohtani had been slumping, and they still won by 10. That’s what scary lineups do — they can survive the original plan breaking. Pages’ breakout was the headli(espn.com)bility. (espn.com) ### Bottom line? The homers made this fun to watch. The Astros’ pitching made it feel ominous. Los Angeles turned one messy Houston afternoon into a highlight reel, but the catch for the Astros is that the mess did not look random at all. (espn.com)
