Rare hiccup for Blanco as Astros hit midpoint

NEW YORK -- The first real hiccup of Ronel Blanco’s season -- well, other than his 10-game suspension for having a foreign substance in his glove -- came in the 81st game of the Astros’ season, which is the midpoint of the schedule and a time for some reflection.

Blanco has been one of the Astros’ biggest bright spots in the first three months, throwing a no-hitter in his first start of the season and piling up the quality work from there. That came to an end Friday night at Citi Field, where the Mets rocked him for three homers and ended Houston’s seven-game winning streak with a 7-2 victory in the series opener.

Blanco allowed a season-high six runs in 5 2/3 innings, three of which were unearned because of a two-out fielding error by third baseman Alex Bregman that came prior to a three-run homer by Jeff McNeil in the sixth. That was the final batter of the night for Blanco, whose ERA sits at 2.49 through 90 1/3 innings.

“I thought he threw the ball really well,” said Astros manager Joe Espada, who was ejected in the seventh for arguing balls and strikes. “He made some really good pitches.

“I was just looking at those home runs, those pitches were down. Looked like tough pitches to hit. Those guys were able to elevate it, especially like the pitch to McNeil. It looked like it was a well-executed changeup. He just kept it fair, kept it in the air. Credit to some good hitting there. Those guys have been swinging the bat well.”

The changeup has been the pitch that helped set Blanco on a course that could have him representing the Astros in the All-Star Game in Arlington next month. Despite the hiccup Friday, Blanco’s body of work is strong. He has nine quality starts in 15 outings. He has a 1.01 WHIP and .171 batting average against. Friday was his first career loss on the road.

Blanco’s career-high innings workload is 125 1/3, combined between Triple-A and the Majors last year, when general manager Dana Brown chose to convert him from a reliever to a starter. If Blanco stays healthy, he’ll blow past his career high innings total at some point this summer.

“At this point, I feel very good physically,” Blanco said. “I thought I was going to be a little more tired and a little heavier, but I’m not really feeling that right now.”

Blanco put himself in trouble by walking the first two batters of the game, and an infield hit loaded the bases with no outs. He held the Mets to one run there, but gave up a solo homer to Tyrone Taylor in the fourth inning and two more homers in the sixth -- Pete Alonso’s go-ahead solo homer and a three-run drive by McNeil. Both of those came on changeups down in the zone.

“After he pitched that first inning and got out of it, he was efficient,” Espada said. “He was throwing the ball really well. He was getting quick innings; he was getting quick outs. He’s been pitching deep in the game for us and getting big outs. Just didn’t work out as we wanted.”

The homer by McNeil, which he sliced down the right-field line, came one batter after Bregman booted a grounder off the bat of Mark Vientos, keeping the inning alive.

“When things like that happen, I really try not to focus on it,” Blanco said. “I try to move forward and focus on the hitter.”

Bregman, a Gold Glove finalist last year in the American League, is one of the more sure-handed third basemen in the league.

“He didn’t make that one,” Espada said, “but I think the big picture, we had opportunities to score a lot of runs -- and we’ve been doing that very well the last couple weeks, getting big hits with runners in scoring position. That wasn’t the case today, but we’ll turn the page and be ready to play tomorrow.”

Considering the Astros were 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position and stranded a season-high 14 runners on base, giving the Mets extra chances to score proved costly.

“We’ve been playing excellent baseball, and tonight was not one of those good nights,” Espada said.