Angels rally for four in ninth to tie score, but Astros win game 7-6 in 10 innings

The Angels love to rally at home. It’s their early-season rage.

Sometimes, though, all that rallying can still come up a tad short. And Friday night the Angels pushed and shoved and tied it all up with four runs in the ninth … only to fall to the Astros 7-6 in 10 innings.

The Angels actually came up against a team that has been even more impressive at this comeback business. The Angels have 11 comeback victories this season. The Astros now have 13, the most in baseball.

The Angels did their rally best in the bottom of the ninth, scoring four times against ace Dallas Keuchel and closer Ken Giles to force extra innings.

“We’ve been coming from behind all year,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “We put together a great inning in the ninth, great at-bats all the way around. We just couldn’t get that last hit to push us through.”

In the top of the 10th, however, the Astros put together a two-out rally of their own against Bud Norris (0-1) to seize back the victory.

Jose Altuve singled, stole second and scored on a Carlos Correa single to right to win for Houston. And the Astros, owners of the best record in the American League (20-10), had comeback No.13.

Houston appeared to be cruising to victory going into the ninth, left-hander Keuchel poised to improve his pristine record to 6-0. Instead the Angels chased Keuchel with three consecutive singles. Houston went to Giles, who was greeted by a bloop single from Trout that scored one run, extending his hitting streak to 17 games.

Giles struck out Albert Pujols and induced pinch-hitter Luis Valbuena into a groundout, but that brought in another run to make it 6-4. Andrelton Simmons hit a hot bouncer that third baseman Marvin Gonzalez couldn’t handle. It went for an infield single as yet another run scored, and the Angels were within one.

Pinch-hitter Kole Calhoun lined a single to right to score the tying run. Ben Revere lined out to left and it was on to the 10th.

“We’re never down, we’re never out,” said starter Jesse Chavez. “We go into each inning like it’s 0-0.”

The night started promisingly enough for the Angels.

Albert Pujols led off the second inning with a home run into the fake grass well beyond center-field wall. It was Pujols’ fourth home run of the season and 595th of his career, which remains ninth all-time.

The solo homer briefly became the scoring method du jour. The Astros tied the score in the third on a Josh Reddick solo home run off Chavez, one ex-Dodger to another.

The Angels regained the lead in the sixth, this time on a solo home run from Martin Maldonado.

All that solo stuff became passe in the seventh.

To that point, Chavez had been in control. He was backed up by some excellent running catches of line drives in the sixth by Trout and Revere, but the Astros had managed only two hits against him.

“Jesse pitched well,” Scioscia said. “He used both sides of the plate and changed speeds well. He got us to a great point in the game.”

The Astros opened the seventh with a single by Correa and a double by Carlos Beltran. After Chavez got Yuli Gurriel to pop up, Scioscia elected to go to left-hander Jose Alvarez. Much to catcher Brian McCann’s delight. He hammered the second pitch he saw into the right-field stands for a three-run homer.

Houston added another run in the eighth against David Hernandez. There would be another blow, this time against Keynan Mid-dleton in the ninth, and it would prove costly. Middleton, making his major league debut, was greeted by a Beltran double off the wall and a run-scoring single by McCann.

“We couldn’t hold them down,” Scioscia said. “Our bullpen’s been pitching a lot and pitching very well. It caught up with us a little bit tonight.”

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