Loperfido's 11th-inning homer lifts Astros past Blue Jays in marathon

On a Tuesday night in Toronto, a baseball game became a meditation on momentum and its reversals — the Blue Jays rallying, the Astros answering, neither team willing to yield until Joey Loperfido's bat settled the argument in the eleventh inning. Houston's 9-7 victory was shaped as much by Toronto's inability to convert opportunity as by any single act of brilliance, a reminder that in long games, stranded runners accumulate like unspoken regrets. Shane Bieber's much-anticipated return from injury added a layer of poignancy, his fragility exposed by a Houston lineup that hit three consecutive