HOUSTON — On the most chaotic day of Daulton Varsho’s baseball career, he found comfort in a familiar face. Varsho did not know many of his new Houston Astros teammates and had already become emotional in bidding farewell to the tight-knit group of Toronto Blue Jays he left behind on Aug. 3.The two teams were playing one another in five hours, forcing Varsho to walk across the bowels of Daikin Park and into his new clubhouse. Awaiting him was a locker adjacent to one person who could lend some support.“I think he was a little wide-eyed the first couple days,” Christian Walker said. “ … (There are) a lot of things, I think, that people don’t realize what’s going on behind the scenes with his family being in Canada, vehicles there, all of a sudden you have a baby in Houston. It’s just a lot.”Walker and Varsho were teammates for three seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Upon their reunion earlier this month, Walker sought to make a seismic transition somewhat easier. He invited Varsho to stay at his Houston home while Varsho figured out his family’s next move. Both Walker and Varsho are fathers of daughters around the same age, so watching them play together has been an added bonus.“It’s a lot,” Varsho said after his 10th game as an Astro. “Obviously moving your family here and packing up all your stuff and being able to kind of get it here. The guys have been great, welcoming. They all know that eventually it’s going to turn for me.”When it did, Walker followed suit. Varsho tied a game the Astros could ill afford to lose. Two pitches later, Walker won it with a 405-foot walk-off home run for a 10-7 victory that is among the Astros’ most memorable of the season. It may have also removed whatever hope remained within the Seattle Mariners clubhouse.
Reunited friends Christian Walker, Daulton Varsho power Astros key win with extra-inning heroics
The Astros headed into the 10th inning two runs behind the Mariners and left it six games ahead of them in the AL West.










