Pitcher makes his playoff case
Righthander follows Keuchel’s gem with best start of the year
With six scoreless innings in 3-0 win over Oakland, Collin McHugh shows postseason form.
A night after Dallas Keuchel had his best start in a couple months, Collin McHugh had his best of the year.
But McHugh didn’t feel like he had his best stuff in the Astros’ 3-0 win Saturday night against the last-place Oakland Athletics at Minute Maid Park.
“I’ve had better stuff and probably better command, but it’s baseball,” McHugh said after pitching six scoreless innings. “Some days, it goes your way. Some days, it doesn’t. Today, enough groundballs found guys and we were fortunate to put some big runs up on the board while I was still in there.”
The Astros (76-47) turned a season-high six double plays, three behind McHugh, who in only his sixth start of the season furthered his case for eventual inclusion in the Astros’ four-man playoff rotation. Each of their four pitchers Saturday induced at least one double play ball, including new reliever Tyler Clippard on the final play of the game, which was overturned by a crew chief review.
“A little different way to end the game, but I’m certainly glad we got it right,” said Astros manager A.J. Hinch, who asked crew chief Jerry Layne to take a second look at whether second baseman Jose Altuve’s throw beat Ryon Healy to first base.
A scoreless seventh inning by lefthanded reliever Francisco Liriano was also encouraging to the Astros, who face the possibility of a postseason without a lefty in their bullpen. Liriano still has much to prove to his new team but figures to garner ample opportunities in the final six weeks of the regular season.
Joe Musgrove, who began the season in the Astros’ rotation, and Clippard, who was a member of the Chicago White Sox as of the previous Saturday, pitched scoreless eighth and ninth innings, respectively. Closer Ken Giles, who converted a five-out save Friday, wasn’t available Saturday, Hinch said.
Alex Bregman continued to rake with his 15th home run and his 30th double of his sophomore season. Altuve, perhaps the American League MVP frontrunner, tacked on two more hits, his 51st multi-hit performance of the season.
McHugh faced little trouble in his sixth start since missing more than the first half of the Astros’ schedule because of an impingement in his pitching elbow.
Mixing five pitches but relying heavily on his fastball, the 30-year-old righthander induced weak contact and allowed only eight of the 23 batters he faced to reach base.
The strong outing from McHugh followed seven scoreless from Keuchel on Friday night. Of the six hits McHugh gave up, five were singles. He issued only one walk and also hit a batter.
“Six double plays. That helps,” McHugh said. “That’ll end an inning, end a rally pretty quickly. I was fortunate to get a couple of those. The infield played great behind me.”
Despite a pitch count of only 92, McHugh wasn’t afforded a seventh inning. Hinch turned to Liriano, who has struggled in his brief tenure with the Astros. In a 14-pitch frame, Liriano worked around a one-out walk with a double play groundball from Bruce Maxwell.
“He’s pitched every other day for about five or six days and maybe that’s going to help him get into his routine, get into his rhythm and just get a lot of mound presence,” Hinch said.
The Astros had A’s starter Kendall Graveman on the ropes but never delivered the finishing blow. They squandered having two runners on with nobody out in the first inning and a two-out double by George Springer in the third on which Springer executed a swim move to elude a tag from second baseman Jed Lowrie.
In the fourth, the Astros broke through but left some meat on the bone. With the bases loaded and no outs, Marwin Gonzalez smacked a ball that glanced off Lowrie’s glove and into right field for a tworun single. But the runs marked the only damage the Astros inflicted in a 39-pitch inning for Graveman, who recovered to complete six.
Bregman gave the Astros an insurance run in the eighth inning with a 423-foot blast onto the train tracks in left field on a slider from Ryan Dull. The 23-year-old third baseman joined Carlos Correa (2016), Cesar Cedeno (197273) and Jimmy Wynn as the only players in Astros history to record 15 homers and 30 doubles in a season before their age-24 campaign.