Houston Astros at Tampa Bay Rays: Final Score & Recap

The Houston Astros held off the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 on August 13, 2024, at Tropicana Field, completing a narrow road victory that the DiamondIQ model had opened as a coin flip at 50% home win probability before the game began. Houston built its margin through a pair of solo home runs in the middle innings, with Alex Bregman connecting off Shane Baz in the fifth and Jeremy Peña following with another off Baz in the sixth, each swing shifting win probability by 13.0 percentage points in the Astros' favor. Those two blows, combined with a run Tampa Bay scratched out in the second, left Houston ahead 3-1 entering the late innings and in control of a game it would need to protect.

The most consequential sequence of the night unfolded in the eighth and ninth innings, where the outcome swung dramatically before finally resolving in Houston's favor. In the bottom of the eighth, Dylan Carlson drew a walk off Ryan Pressly that added 18.9 percentage points to Tampa Bay's win probability, keeping a rally alive, but Christopher Morel's groundout to end the inning immediately surrendered 25.8 points back to Houston. The Rays pushed across a run in that frame to make it 3-2, setting up a tense ninth. Josh Hader retired Josh Lowe on a groundout to end the game, a play that shifted win probability 31.6 points against Tampa Bay and sealed the Astros' victory.

Among individual performers, Lowe finished as the game's top WPA contributor at plus-33.5 percentage points largely on the strength of the threat Tampa Bay sustained through the late innings, while Carlson added plus-15.1 points via his eighth-inning walk. Bregman led Houston's position players at plus-13.4 WPA and posted the night's best RE24 among batters at plus-1.3. On the mound, Yusei Kikuchi paced all pitchers with plus-15.9 WPA, followed by Bryan Abreu at plus-12.3 and Drew Rasmussen at plus-7.1, as the Astros' bullpen ultimately preserved a one-run result.