HOUSTON — Yordan Alvarez smashed his 32nd and 33rd homers of the season, Jeremy Peña hit a grand slam and Ronel Blanco struck out eight batters in 4 2/3 innings in his return to the rotation to lead the Astros to an 8-5 win over the Marlins on Monday night at Daikin Park, snapping a four-game losing streak.
Blanco, pitching in a Major League game for the first time since May 17, 2025, and for the first time since undergoing Tommy John surgery, allowed only two hits, both of which were homers that followed walks. He threw 58 of 86 pitches for strikes and had 18 whiffs, including eight on his changeup.
Joe Mack’s two-out homer in the second inning began the scoring, but the Astros scored six times in the bottom of the inning — equaling their total runs scored in getting swept by the Orioles over the weekend. Peña’s grand slam made it 5-2, and Alvarez followed with a second-deck homer to right field that traveled a Statcast-estimated 428 feet.
The second homer allowed by Blanco, a two-run shot by Liam Hicks in the fourth, cut the Houston lead to 6-4, but Alvarez led off the fifth with another majestic homer that traveled 419 feet and was 108.3 mph off the bat. It was the 27th multihomer game of Alvarez’s career, including the fifth this season.
