Astros end Red Sox series with loss
Shortstop homers twice, drives in four runs; Fisher caught on steal attempt to end game
Xander Bogaerts homered twice and drove in four runs Sunday night, and the Red Sox beat the Astros 6-5 at Minute Maid Park as Houston closed a nine-game homestand with a 3-6 record and three lost series.
Bogaerts’ first career multihomer game stung the Astros, but Houston squandered ample opportunities off six Boston pitchers by stranding 13 baserunners, including seven in the first three innings, and going an anemic 3-for-15 with runners in scoring position.
They twice loaded the bases, coming up empty in the second before Carlos Beltran’s single in the eighth got them within a run. Left fielder Andrew Benintendi gunned down Jose Altuve at the plate to prevent the tying run from scoring on Betran’s hit.
Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel pitched the ninth. Rookie Derek Fisher lined a one-out base hit, but Nori Aoki lined out to left, and Fisher was thrown out by catcher Christian Vazquez for the final out of the game.
It was a game that featured warnings to both benches after Astros reliever James Hoyt hit two batters, Yuli Gurriel’s ejection after expressing dismay on a called third strike by umpire Greg Gibson in the eighth, and a playoffstyle atmosphere between two teams who will meet next in the final series of the regular season.
For now, the Astros depart for a seven-game trip to Oakland and Seattle with the best record in baseball but in the midst of their roughest stretch of the season with the heart of their rotation, most notably Dallas Keuchel and Lance McCullers Jr., still on the disabled list.
Boston’s four-run sixth inning was the turning point in a game in which Astros starter Joe Musgrove was mostly in control and Boston starter David Price was mostly struggling. But Price departed with a 5-3 lead one batter into the sixth inning.
Musgrove struck out seven and allowed only Bogaerts’ first-inning home run entering the sixth, retiring eight batters in a row through the end of the fifth. But he walked Dustin Pedroia, and Bogaerts followed with his second homer of the game into the Crawford Boxes.
Musgrove was lifted
after a Hanley Ramirez single and a walk to Benintendi. Both scored on Jackie Bradley’s double to the right-field wall off Hoyt.
Hoyt made it through the sixth but was lifted in the seventh after hitting Mookie Betts in the knee and Pedroia in the back, prompting plate umpire Greg Gibson to issue warnings to both benches.
Adding insult to injury, Chris Devenski’s attempted pickoff throw to second hit Betts on the right elbow. He was on the ground for a minute but got back up and scored on Bogaerts’ third hit to make it 6-4.
Price spent much of his time on the mound shaking his head at his faltering location and examining the condition on a blister on the ring finger of his left pitching hand. He allowed eight hits with three walks and three strikeouts through five innings but left with the lead because the Astros repeatedly failed with runners in scoring position.
The Astros chased Price with a 454-foot blast onto the train tracks in left-center field by Jake Marisnick, and George Springer followed with another home run off Heath Hembree, breaking Boston’s streak of 26 scoreless bullpen innings.