Correa dominates with 4-for-5 showing to extend hitting surge
He pulled his hands through the zone quickly. He barreled up balls solidly. He placed hits out of reach of any fielder to prevent them or the runs they drove in.
On a day the American League All-Star Game selections would include his name, Carlos Correa, the Astros’ 22-year-old shortstop, dominated a game like he had been named to the team many times.
Correa went 4-for-5 with two singles and two doubles, to drive in three runs — all with two outs — in the Astros’ 8-1 win over the New York Yankees on Sunday.
Mike Fiers lasted four innings, but that was enough. The offense totaled 14 hits and bullpen finished five more innings to compensate, which is something both groups have had to do recently.
Correa doubled in his first at-bat to extend a 12game hit streak. He has reached base in 20 consecutive games and is batting .417, with eight extra-base hits and 15 RBIs.
Although primed for an All-Star spot, Correa might not be the hottest hitter in Houston.
On Sunday, Josh Reddick drove in the first run, Marwin Gonzalez hit his 14th home run and Yuli Gurriel went 3-for-4 with two runs scored and three more batted in.
In the second, Carlos Beltran doubled off Luis Severino (5-4) to end an 0-for-14 slump. Then Gonzalez, batting lefthanded, set a career high with his 14th home run. Gonzalez lined it the other way into the Crawford Boxes to put the Astros up 2-0.
A day after winning a game with a double down the left-field line, Gurriel began Sunday with a similar hit, except he had to pull a swift swim maneuver to avoid the tag at second for a double. As Gurriel glided headfirst through dirt, he spotted the tag coming, planted his right hand and pushed his weight left in order to flip on to his back. The glove missed him, as he reached the corner of the bag with his left hand.
Hot bats abound
With two outs and Gurriel dusted at second, Reddick drove him in with a double to right to make it 3-0 Astros.
Reddick is 16-for-31 (.485), with nine extra-base hits, nine RBIs and 14 runs scored since returning on June 20 from a concussion.
“Maybe something got knocked back into sense,” Reddick said.
Correa came up with the bases loaded in the fourth. Given his production this season, Correa would seem like the ideal hitter up, but he had been 2-for-10 in that situation.
He saw a changeup cutting toward his front knee and hammered it just inside the third-base line for a two-run double.
“His hands are really fast to the ball,” Reddick said of Correa. “He stays inside of everything. He can hurt you from foul pole to foul pole. … When he’s recognizing pitches and hitting right, he’s going to do a lot of damage.”
Correa drove in George Springer on a single to center in the sixth to push his RBI total to 58 and the Astros ahead 6-0.
“That’s the difference between 90 to 100 RBI,” Reddick said. “You get those easy ones by not trying
to do too much. That’s what he’s doing right now.”
April seems like more than two years ago, not months, if tracking the season by Correa’s progress. He consistently has raised his average from .220 on April 29 to .319.
The lead was vast by the seventh, when Gurriel hit his 10th home of the season and second in as many days.
Gurriel typically lines balls, but he sent a curveball from Domingo German soaring into the archways in left field.
The Astros lead the majors with 133 home runs and, for the first time in franchise history, have eight players with doubledigit homers before the All-Star break, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
The Yankees had scored 19 runs in the first two games of the series, so Fiers often was more careful than aggressive Sunday.
He held the Yankees scoreless, but allowed two runners on base in three of his four innings and exhausted 105 pitches. He reached 3-2 counts with eight of the 18 batters he faced.
“Obviously a fourinning start isn’t what he came in for or what he was hoping for at the start of the day,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “He just had to battle the entire game, every inning. … The way the runners were on base and the counts he was in, he wouldn’t think he’d have four scoreless.”
On a staff searching for consistency, Chris Devenski (5-3) has been as guaranteed as the Houston heat, oppressing and wilting batters this season. His ERA peaked at 3.09 on May 14. He shaved it to 2.15 after his winning performance Sunday.
Devenski takes over
In the fifth, he struck out the side, including Aaron Judge, the rookie right fielder turned phenom, with a squiggling changeup. Devenski added another strikeout in a clean sixth.
“There had been so much traffic on the bases,” Hinch said, “(Devenski) really did give us a boost for later in the game.”
Devenski has not allowed a run in his last eight appearances.
Michael Feliz and James Hoyt held the lead until lefty Ashur Tolliver, who was called up from Class Fresno on Sunday, surrendered a run in the ninth.
Tolliver left two runners on base, which Dayan Diaz cleaned up to seal the victory.
Correa got his final single in the eighth. He topped a ball that pushed through the fingertips of third baseman Chase Headley. It was an infield single, but Sunday, even a slow roller hit by Correa was hit out of reach.