Altuve breaks out in blowout win
Batting champ adds 2-run double to aid late 11-run eruption
CLEVELAND — This is where Jose Altuve’s slumps come to end, in the waning innings on the road with the Astros in desperate need of a hit. Ten days ago, he arrived at the plate in Anaheim with his team down two runs, the bases loaded, one out and mired in a 2for-18 slump. His go-ahead, three-run double secured a win.
Friday night, two were on and one was out in a game the Astros trailed by two. Again it was the eighth inning and, again, there was an Altuve “slump.” Using such verbiage seems absurd — Altuve’s batting average still hovers above .300 — but the standards to which the American League batting champion holds himself raise higher than for normal players.
“It doesn’t matter how things are going or where we are in the game, you always want Jose to come to bat with the game on the line,” manager A.J. Hinch said.
With two hits in his last 16 atbats, Altuve faced Andrew Miller, Cleveland’s feared lefthander. Miller offered a first-pitch slider. Altuve pulled it down the left-field line — the same pitch he saw in Anaheim placed in the same location.
The result? Well, that was the same, too.
George Springer scored from
second base with ease. Thirdbase coach Gary Pettis aggressively waved in Alex Bregman, coming from first after drawing his team-leading 33rd walk of the season.
He, too, scored without a throw — completing the sort of breakthrough for an Astros bunch that could not get one for the seven preceding innings of Friday’s 11-2 victory over the Indians.
“I was having a tough last two games with no hits so, you just go up there and try to hit the ball somewhere,” Altuve said. “Maybe put the runners in scoring position for (Carlos) Correa. I don’t know how I hit the ball over third base, only thing I can tell you I was happy to contribute.”
The eighth inning was a remedy, a four-run frame against the two most competent pitchers — Miller and closer Cody Allen — in an otherwise atrocious Cleveland bullpen that gagged a game its team led 2-0 entering the eighth inning.
Altuve moved to third base when Correa grounded out to shortstop. He scored the goahead run when Marwin Gonzalez aptly handled the barrel on Miller’s elevated curveball, laying down a textbook safety squeeze bunt as Altuve scurried home.
Altuve slid head first and his helmet flew off. He leapt up with a smile and entered a jubilant dugout.
“Everything was different,” Gonzalez said. “We got really good energy in the last few innings. We’re playing 100 percent baseball. They have good pitching, they shut us down for seven innings. But that’s what this team is capable of doing, we can do damage in one or two innings.”
Allen was summoned, only to cede a single, hit Yuli Gurriel and walk Max Stassi with the bases loaded, affording the Astros their fourth run of the inning and enraging a booing home crowd.
The game was a footnote in this city, one with anxious eyes upon the Eastern Conference finals played a few hundred yards from Progressive Field. But 49 games has developed a troubling pattern, one that cannot be ignored — the Indians’ ability to waste their elite starting pitching.
Starter Corey Kluber departed with one out in the seventh inning and a 2-0 lead.
Five pitchers were required to collect the final eight outs. They yielded 11 runs and the Astros bludgeoned nine hits against them, batting around in both the eighth and ninth. The Astros now lead the majors with 99 runs scored after the seventh inning.
Springer’s team-leading 11th home run capped a seven-run ninth inning that only intensified the jeers, prompting many to exit the stadium in disgust.
A lone cheer did emanate — when the Cavaliers’ 12-point, fourth-quarter lead was announced to those who still remained. Miller relieved Kluber after 6
1⁄3strenuous innings. The Astros failed to score against the twotime Cy Young Award winner while wasting numerous opportunities to do so. But their patience against him was rewarded.
Six days ago, 10 Astros struck out against Kluber. They did not muster an extra-base hit until the sixth inning, by then already facing a five-run deficit — insurmountable against a man of Kluber’s prowess.
Friday, more competitive atbats offered more opportunities. Two of the Astros’ first four innings began with a base hit. They taxed Kluber much like they did Mike Clevinger on Thursday, working long at-bats and spoiling 10 two-strike pitches foul over the first six innings.
Kluber threw 102 pitches and allowed seven hits. He left in the seventh when Jose Ramirez neglected to field Gurriel’s one-out chopper down the third-base line.
Consecutive singles from Evan Gattis and Stassi forced Kluber from the game.
“It’s no secret they’re having a hard time right now,” Gonzalez said. “They have a good bullpen, but they’re having a hard time right now. When you have a pitcher like Kluber, even if you have a good bullpen, you want to get him out.” And the Astros did. “I’m glad he came out of the game so we could score some runs,” Altuve said.