HOUSTON -- As they ride the roller coaster of playoff pursuit, the Astros are at least seeing what postseason clinchers are like.
With Peter Lambert, AJ Blubaugh and Enyel De Los Santos each serving up a two-run homer Friday night, the Astros fell, 6-2, to the Atlanta Braves, who secured a playoff berth exactly one week after the Tampa Bay Rays did the same, when Junior Caminero beat Houston with a walk-off home run.
At 77-77, the Astros fell back into a tie for the American League West lead as the Rangers beat the Blue Jays. Houston holds the tiebreaker over Texas thanks to a 9-4 advantage in the season series.
Aside from Yordan Alvarez, who was 1-for-2 with a walk, and Isaac Paredes, who had a pair of RBI singles, the Astros got little offensively. Everyone else was a combined 2-for-26. Save for consecutive hits by Alvarez, Paredes and Jose Altuve in the fourth, the Astros touched Atlanta starter Tyler Mahle (7-10) for nothing else over six innings, striking out six times against the right-hander whom Atlanta acquired from the Giants at the Trade Deadline.
Asked what made Mahle, who is 4-1 with the Braves, so effective, Astros manager Joe Espada said: “That fastball up in the zone. We chased it, and he had really good movement at the end that kind of opened up the bottom of the zone. We’ve faced him before, and he’s tough against us. We just couldn’t square him up.”
The Braves -- who have won their last five games at Daikin, including the 2021 World Series clincher -- were hitless with one out in the fourth. Lambert then surrendered a single to Matt Olson before serving up a two-run homer to Michael Harris II.
Blubaugh kept it a two-run game by getting Houston out of a bases-loaded jam created by Lambert in the sixth, striking out Mike Yastrzemski and retiring Austin Riley on a liner to second.
“Pete pitched a great outing. I’m glad I could keep those runs on the field,” Blubaugh said. “Not ideal falling behind 2-0 to [Yastrzemski], but Vazky [catcher Christian Vazquez] kept giving me a little fist pump back there, and it was nice to be able to battle back and get a strikeout. And Jose [Altuve] made a great play to get out of the jam.”
Blubaugh, who reached 92 innings out of the bullpen with his 60th appearance of the season, had tougher luck in the seventh. He walked Drake Baldwin with one out, then got tagged by Ronald Acuña Jr., whose 111-mph exit velocity on a first-pitch fastball resulted in a home run to left field.
Acuña would victimize the Astros again, this time with his glove.
After Paredes’ second RBI single made it 4-2 and put the tying runs on base with two outs in the eighth, Acuña completed a 79-foot sprint with a dive to catch Altuve’s flare to shallow right field.
“Obviously, he’s so good over there,” Espada said of Acuña. “Off the bat, I thought that ball was gonna fall. But I wasn’t surprised when he came up with it. He’s so fast, and he takes such good routes.”
Atlanta, which hasn’t lost a regular-season game at Daikin since 2017, got its final two runs when Olson took De Los Santos deep in the ninth for his 40th homer of the season.
In his pursuit of a Triple Crown, Alvarez upped his batting average to .312 to stretch his lead over Chandler Simpson, who slipped to .308 by going hitless in five at-bats against Boston.
But Alvarez fell further behind in the RBI category. Pete Alonso’s three-run homer for the Orioles gave him 105 runs batted in, six more than Alvarez.
With 40 home runs, Alvarez remains one behind Caminero.