Yainer Diaz recorded his third consecutive multi-hit game and Yusei Kikuchi matched a franchise record in his debut with the Houston Astros, who rallied for a 3-2 victory over the visiting Tampa Bay Rays on Friday.
Kikuchi fanned a franchise-record-tying eight consecutive batters late in his 5 2/3-inning outing.
Diaz finished 2-for-3 with a walk and a run. His two-out double to left field off Rays reliever Kevin Kelly (3-2) in the bottom of the seventh inning pushed Yordan Alvarez to third base. When Rays second baseman Christopher Morel missed the throw back to the infield, Alvarez scored the tiebreaking run on the error.
Astros reliever Ryan Pressly preserved the one-run lead, working out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the eighth by striking out Josh Lowe before getting Jonny DeLuca to roll a grounder to third. Josh Hader notched his 22nd save with a scoreless ninth.
Kikuchi had an inauspicious start to his Astros debut. Acquired from the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday at the trade deadline, Kikuchi surrendered a leadoff double to Yandy Diaz in the top of the first and a two-run home run to the next batter, Dylan Carlson. Both extra-base hits came off the fastball, with Carlson turning his first homer of the season into a 2-0 lead for the Rays.
Kikuchi faced four additional batters before escaping the frame. However, after allowing a leadoff single to Jose Siri in the second, Kikuchi induced a double-play grounder from Jose Caballero. With one out in the third, he found a record groove.
Kikuchi struck out the final two batters of the third and then struck out the side in the fourth and fifth. His whiff of Alex Jackson to conclude the fifth was his eighth in succession, matching the team mark accomplished three times previously.
A leadoff walk by Yandy Diaz in the sixth ended the streak, but Kikuchi rallied with a strikeout of Carlson for his 11th on the evening.
By integrating the changeup into his arsenal, Kikuchi had a career-high 26 swings and misses. He threw 25 changeups among his 95 pitches and earned 11 swings and misses on that pitch. Kikuchi allowed two runs on three hits and three walks.
The Astros scratched across two runs off Rays starter Shane Baz in the fourth with Yainer Diaz (walk) and Jeremy Pena (double) scoring after Jon Singleton and Jake Meyers followed with a single and sacrifice fly, respectively.
Bryan Abreu (2-1) pitched a perfect sixth inning for the win.