Blanco answers the call: 'We needed that one'

HOUSTON -- The Astros weren’t sure what to expect from starting pitcher Ronel Blanco on Thursday night, but they knew what they needed. They called up the 29-year-old right-hander from Triple-A and added him to the rotation, giving the Astros six starting pitchers during a stretch in which they’re playing 17 games in a row.

What the Astros needed was exactly what Blanco delivered in his first Major League start. He held the Angels to two runs and seven hits in 5 1/3 innings, striking out five, and picked up his first career victory in Houston's 5-2 win over the Angels at Minute Maid Park.

“It’s a great accomplishment and great goal for me, and obviously the guys are very happy for me,” Blanco said. “It’s also very exciting.”

The Astros, who improved to 16-5 in their last 21 games, scored three times in the fifth inning to take the lead, capped by a tie-breaking two-run single with the bases loaded by Alex Bregman. He’s hitting .406 (13-for-32) during an eight-game hitting streak.

“We needed that one,” Bregman said. “Blanco was huge today, just giving us length, honestly. Not only length, but quality innings. He was attacking and competing. It’s huge.”

Blanco, who made his Major League debut last year, has been a traditional reliever since he was in Low-A in 2018, except for a couple of starts in 2019. An injury to Lance McCullers Jr. early in the spring prompted Astros general manager Dana Brown to lead the charge to convert Blanco to a starter.

A late bloomer who signed as a 22-year-old in 2016, Blanco had a 3.51 ERA with 115 strikeouts in 89 2/3 innings in 2021-22 in Triple-A. He made the Opening Day roster as a long reliever, but was sent down on May 2 to get stretched out at Sugar Land. He was 2-0 with a 0.56 ERA in four games (two starts) at Triple-A, with 21 strikeouts in 16 innings.

“That's one of the reasons I went back down, for me to be able to come back and pitch in these situations,” Blanco said. “The transition, I think, for me was a lot more mental than physical. Obviously, it was a great challenge for me but I took it in stride and I think I’m doing well.”

Relying mostly on his fastball-slider combination, Blanco allowed two batters to reach base after the first out of the first inning before striking out a pair, but he faced real danger in the second when Shohei Ohtani came to bat with the bases loaded and two outs. He got him to swing through a first-pitch slider and foul off an 0-1 slider before striking him out swinging on an 0-2 changeup.

“He was good after he settled down,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “He started out a little shaky. That second inning, he had a bunch of pitches and you started counting pitches and you’re like the maximum was around 90 -- and then he settled down, he got out of a couple of tough jams with some tough hitters. He threw some quality pitches tonight.”

The Astros’ bullpen, which has been stretched a bit thin, saw four relievers handle the final 3 2/3 innings by giving up four hits and no runs. Ryan Pressly worked the ninth for his 11th save. Pressly knows what Blanco's been through -- he was a starter his first four years in the Minor Leagues in the Red Sox system, eventually moving to the bullpen in High-A and then again to Double-A two weeks later.

“To make that transition is so difficult,” Pressly said. “The way he’s been able to go from the bullpen back to a starter has been pretty impressive. Hopefully he can keep doing it.”

The win was career victory No. 2,126 for Baker, who passed Hall of Famer Joe McCarthy for eighth place on the all-time managerial wins list. Next on the list is Bucky Harris (2,158) in the seventh spot.

“As long as I was staying alive, I knew it was inevitable,” Baker said of surpassing McCarthy. “It feels good to get it out of the way, but it feels even more important to get Blanco his first win and us to pick up a half a game on the idle Rangers [in the American League West standings] tonight and to get back on the winning trail here at home.”