PHILADELPHIA _ When the Astros play baseball outside of Houston, they morph into the transcendent Yankees teams that exist only in black-and-white nostalgia. Before Houston defeated the Phillies, 5-0, on Tuesday, the Astros averaged 7.3 runs per game on the road. That was the highest mark for a team since the 1939 Yankees, a group that won 106 games and swept the World Series.
The challenge for Nick Pivetta, a rookie right-hander, was steep _ even without Carlos Correa, George Springer, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran in the lineup. Young Astros star Alex Bregman injured his hamstring in the third inning.
And, still, Houston tagged Pivetta for five runs in six innings.
It's good to be the Astros, a team that endured a painstaking tear-down much like the Phillies' current one. They were laughingstocks for years. Now, they are savants.
Houston signed Charlie Morton, a Phillies castoff, for $14 million and rode him Tuesday for seven scoreless innings. They promoted Derek Fisher _ an outfielder they almost traded to the Phillies two winters ago _ from the minors Tuesday and watched him deliver an important two-run single in the sixth.
The first two games of this series between two teams separated by 32 games in the standings have developed as expected.
There were some wrinkles. The provocative enigma that is Odubel Herrera lasted just six innings Tuesday night. He was removed from the game in a double switch after he struck out for the second out in the bottom of the sixth. He did not appear ready for a pitch that was a called strike. He did not run to first after whiffing at a pitch in the dirt. Some fans booed him.
Earlier, in the first inning, Herrera clobbered a ball to deep center. He emphatically flipped his bat, as his wont to do, and jogged to first base. The ball did not leave the yard, nor was it a hit. Fisher grabbed it at the wall.
A replay of Herrera and his exuberant bat ejection played on the giant scoreboard. Players in the Astros dugout mocked Herrera.
Herrera has been the Phillies' best hitter this month. He is batting .348 with a .408 on-base percentage and .623 slugging percentage. Those numbers are .331/.374/.560 since June 1. But Tuesday was a bad night. He is a maddening player, albeit a talented one.
Sometimes, the players with the highest expectations are the targets when frustration over a team 30 games under .500 boils over. Herrera launched a ball 401 feet and was too excited. He did not run on a dropped third strike, an act that is repeated by players every night. But Herrera was signed to a $30.5 million extension before this season. He is the only player guaranteed money beyond 2017.
That is not superstar money, and the Phillies do not believe Herrera is a future star. But they see him as a productive player. He has been one for much of his first three seasons in the majors. That does not excuse the mental errors, but it can make them easier to stomach.
Pivetta, for the game's first five innings, mastered Houston's depleted but potent lineup. He surrendered a run in the third after Bregman's triple. Pivetta retired 16 of the first 18 batters he faced. But the Astros collected five hits _ four singles _ in the sixth and pushed the game to a comfortable waltz.
