The Astros had a chance to turn the 10th inning into a full-blown escape act Wednesday night. Instead, Yordan Alvarez ended up at the center of a play that swung the game the Blue Jays’ way.
With the tying run on first and nobody out to start the bottom of the 10th, Toronto chose to pitch to Alvarez anyway. He answered with a hard RBI single into the right-field corner, driving in automatic runner Jeremy Peña and sending the crowd at Daikin Park into a frenzy. But when Alvarez tried to turn it into a double, the inning changed in a blink.
Nathan Lukes got the ball back in quickly from right field, Andrés Giménez caught it and tagged Alvarez as his left foot came up short of second base. The Astros challenged, and the replay on the stadium board appeared to show Alvarez maybe grazing the bag with the tip of his cleat before the tag.
The call stood. Joe Espada came out to argue with first-base umpire Doug Eddings and was tossed, his first ejection of 2026.
“Honestly, I think I missed the base,” Alvarez said.
The Blue Jays said there had been some thought of intentionally walking Alvarez, who is the front-runner for American League Most Valuable Player. John Schneider made it clear Toronto liked the way the sequence played out.
“You're sitting there with a Hall of Famer on deck, swinging the bat well,” Schneider said. “So, really, really good play from Lukes to get it in, and it was kind of a no way moment, you know, with Gimé, he deked him there.
Kind of caught a break, but that's extra innings, you got to catch a break. But great throw, great tag.”
Espada saw it differently.
“His foot was on the bag and I don’t know if he called him out because his foot came off or not, but it looked to me like he beat the play,” Espada said. “They make the call in New York and that’s the ruling and I disagree with it.”
The Astros never recovered. Jose Altuve flied out two pitches later, Daulton Varsho followed with another flyout on the next pitch from Chase Lee, and Toronto escaped with a 5-4 win.
It was a frustrating finish to a night that also featured missed opportunities earlier. Houston loaded the bases with one out in the first inning against Jameson Taillon and came away empty.
In the sixth, the Astros put runners at second and third with no outs and still failed to score. They finished 3-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
“For the most part, our at-bats were good,” Espada said. “We put some pressure on those guys, but they deployed the back end of the bullpen, and it’s pretty good.”
Toronto had trailed 3-0 through five innings before Ernie Clement flipped the game with a two-run homer on the first pitch from Bennett Sousa in the top of the 10th. Earlier, Astros starter Hunter Brown had taken a no-hitter into the sixth before surrendering three runs, including Jesús Sánchez’s two-run homer on a 3-0 fastball that tied the game.
“A lot of guys swing 3-0 on me,” Brown said. “He jumped it and hit it out of the ballpark. I don’t know if you want to say surprise, but tip your hat to him.”
The loss was Houston’s third in its last 15 games, but it also marked the club’s first series defeat since being swept by the Orioles coming out of the All-Star break. The Astros are 59-57 as they head to San Diego and San Francisco, carrying a 1 1/2-game lead over the Rangers in the AL West.
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