*Photo from Sportsnaut*
Despite continuing a suspended game earlier in the day, the Houston Astros showed no signs of lag in the regularly scheduled game. Chas McCormick drove in a run, Yordan Alvarez homered twice, and the Astros shut out the Minnesota Twins with a 5-0 victory on Thursday afternoon in Minneapolis.
After completing Wednesday's suspended game on Thursday afternoon, the Astros came out for this game on all cylinders. They shut out the Twins, sweeping the series against them, and they ran their winning streak to 10 games. That streak is currently the longest active in the majors, and they moved into first place in the AL West.
Houston manager Dusty Baker said of the team's success that "Usually, when you have a winning streak, you’re either hitting the ball a ton or pitching a ton, or both usually. I can’t take anything away from our pitching. They’re pitching great. Everybody knows we’ve got good pitching, and we’ve really been playing good baseball."
The Astros got on the board in the second inning, when Kyle Tucker scored on an RBI single to center field by McCormick, giving the Astros a 1-0 lead. One inning later, in the 3rd inning, Alvarez launched a two run home run to center field, tripling the Astros lead to a 3-0 margin.
In the 4th inning, Jeremy Peña hit an infield single, advancing to second on an error, which also scored Jason Castro, making a 4-0 lead for the Astros. It stayed that way until the 9th, when Alvarez hit his second home run of the day, this one a solo shot, to make it a 5-0 Astros win.
Baker said of winning two games in one day that "That was outstanding. It’s hard to win an almost doubleheader, a game and two-thirds, especially on the road, in their house. Our guys are dragging a little bit, but we got pretty good pitching and got some very timely hitting, especially from Yordan. We hope he’s getting hot like only he can. It feels good to start the road trip 3-0."
Getting the start in the regularly scheduled game for the Astros was Luis Garcia, who threw 5 shutout innings while striking out 9 hitters, getting the win. Seth Martinez added 1 2/3 innings in relief of Garcia, followed by 1 1/3 innings from Blake Taylor and one inning from Rafael Montero to preserve the shutout.
For the Twins, it was Josh Winder who got the start in the second game. Winder took the loss to fall to 2-1 this season, allowing 4 runs on 6 hits and 3 walks across 3 1/3 innings pitched. Caleb Thielbar threw 1 2/3 shutout innings after Winder left, followed by two shutout innings from Tyler Duffey, and one inning from Cole Sands.
Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said of being swept that "We always have to find ways to win. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing one of the best teams in baseball, as we were this week. I think we can look all around at the games that we just played and can say we need to pitch better and we need to swing the bats a little bit better."
Up next, the red hot Astros venture to Washington to face the Washington Nationals for the weekend, beginning on Friday night, where Framber Valdez will start. The Twins welcome the Cleveland Guardians to town on Friday, with Sonny Gray to get the start.
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