Mike Minor pitched decently in his debut, striking out five and walking only one in six innings. He gave up a few bloop hits but also got lucky when some hard-hit balls turned into outs. Overall, he allowed three earned runs. Jason Heyward and Brian McCann homered early to in an up-and-down game, but the Braves’ defense was absolutely brutal, making several key mistakes that led to multiple runs. In particular, the Astros scored six runs in the seventh inning off of Kyle Farnsworth and Peter Moylan thanks to bad pitching, poor fundamentals, and abysmal defense. That inning turned a 4-4 game into a 10-4 blowout.
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