Roughing up Cy Young winner
Three-run first and third innings lead to 7-1 win over Boston and its ace Rick Porcello.
Rick Porcello appears to be going through a 2016 Dallas Keuchel-esque Cy Young hangover. The Boston Red Sox righthander has a 5.05 ERA and has allowed a whopping 124 hits in 922⁄3 innings, 17 more hits than the major league pitcher with the nextworst total.
Such a season is certainly not conducive to conquering the 2017 Astros, still the best team in baseball despite their recent slide. Their vaunted lineup is prone to break out at any point, as it did against Porcello in the early innings of a 7-1 win Saturday night at Minute Maid Park.
The Astros (46-23) touched up the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner for three runs in the first inning, three runs in the third inning and one more in the sixth. Jose Altuve and Carlos Beltran each homered, accounting for two of the Astros’ six extrabase hits off Porcello.
Porcello’s ERA inflated by 0.38. He was outpitched by Astros rookie righthander David Paulino, who had by far the best of his five major league starts. Paulino required only 81 pitches to complete six innings in which he allowed one run and earned his first major league win.
“That was a great performance, and I loved his demeanor,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said of the 23-year-old Paulino. “He was calm the whole day. He looked focused. He was getting them to mishit some balls. He stayed very calm in his approach. I thought (Brian McCann) did a great job with him, just navigating through a pretty tough lineup, and he made pitches.” Combined three-hitter
Paulino struck out only four but gave up just three hits: two singles and a solo home run by Houston native and Astros killer Chris Young. Chris Devenski, Luke Gregerson and Dayan Diaz combined to hold the Red Sox (38-30) hitless over the final three innings.
Paulino, who had a 6.59 ERA through his first three major league starts this season, said fastball command and his curveball were key on Saturday. He was guided through the game by McCann, who brought the experience of knowing the Red Sox personnel from his three seasons with their American League East rival New York Yankees.
McCann also has seen his fair share of Porcello, including last season when the Boston pitcher had a 3.15 ERA in 33 starts spanning 223 innings.
“He left a couple more balls out over the plate tonight than normal,” McCann said. “I feel like I say it every night, but (in) this lineup, anybody can hurt you. When you’ve got to deal with one through nine, it’s hard to execute for 100 pitches.” Quick-strike attack
George Springer set the tone for the Astros’ evening offensively with a leadoff double against Porcello in the first. Marwin Gonzalez dropped a perfectly placed bunt down the third-base line for a single, and Altuve drove in Springer from third on a flare down the right-field line. After Carlos Correa walked, McCann and Beltran hit consecutive sacrifice flies. Third-inning blasts
Altuve opened the third with his homer, his 10th of the season, on an elevated slider he sent an estimated 428 feet out to left field. Three batters later, Beltran deposited a Porcello fastball over the right-field wall for his ninth homer of the season and the 430th of his 20-year career, fourth most among active players behind Albert Pujols (601), Miguel Cabrera (452) and Adrian Beltre (442).
“The difference once again is elevation in the strike zone,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said of Porcello. “It wasn’t pitched tight. Any time he made a mistake up in the strike zone, whether it’s a breaking ball to Altuve to a fastball that didn’t stay in or down to Beltran, those are pitches that seemingly can come back to haunt him.”
Porcello quieted the Astros in the fourth and fifth before Yuli Gurriel opened the sixth with a double. Gurriel advanced to third base on a single by Derek Fisher and scored when Nori Aoki grounded into a double play.
Porcello has allowed five runs or more in three consecutive outings. It was the fourth time in his last six starts he surrendered double-digit hits. He said he knows what he has to fix but is “just having a hard time doing it.”
“He’s a guy who has a pretty good sinker,” said Beltran, another ex-Yankee. “I faced him last year, the year that he won the Cy Young, and his sinker was amazing. It’s not like it’s not amazing (now). It’s just that location is what makes a sinker a good sinker. Today we got good pitches in the middle of the plate, and we were able to put those in play.” jake.kaplan@chron.com twitter.com/jakemkaplan