Road to World Series continues
MLB PLAYOFFS American and National league teams continued their quest toward the World Series with divisional games on Friday.
Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve and the high-powered Astros led the majors in runs, hits and batting average in the regular season.
Now that it’s playoff time, Houston is still hammering away.
Correa homered, doubled and drove in four runs, Altuve got two more hits and the Astros battered the Boston Red Sox 8-2 Friday to take a commanding 2-0 lead in the AL Division Series.
George Springer also homered to back Dallas Keuchel in Houston’s second straight romp by the exact same score.
The Astros will go for a sweep in the best-of-five matchup Sunday at Fenway Park, a year after Boston was swept in the ALDS by Cleveland. Brad Peacock (13-2) starts for Houston against Doug Fister (5-9).
David Price, the starterturned-reliever with the $217 million contract, pitched 2
scoreless innings for the Red Sox. Following his exit, Houston tacked on four runs in the sixth.
A two-out intentional walk to Altuve, the major league batting champion this season, led to a two-run double by Correa. The top overall pick in the 2012 draft and crown jewel of Houston’s yearslong rebuilding project raised his hands in delight and motioned for the crowd to get louder as he stopped at second base.
Keuchel had trouble settling in early and after needing 30 pitches to get through the second inning, it looked like this start might be a short one. But he struck out the last two batters of that inning as the first of 13 straight he retired.
Keuchel exited to a standing ovation after walking Hanley Ramirez with two outs in the sixth inning.
Altuve, who hit .346 this year, kept punishing pitchers. After singling in his first two trips to the plate, giving him five hits in the series, the Red Sox had seen enough and intentionally walked him in the fourth. That drew a loud chorus of boos from the home crowd, which greeted Altuve with a standing ovation in his first at-bat.
Indians edge Yankees in extra innings
Yan Gomes singled home Austin Jackson from second base with none out in the 13th inning as the Cleveland Indians rallied from five runs down to stun the New York Yankees 9-8 Friday and snatch a 2-0 lead in the AL Division Series.
Jackson drew a leadoff walk in the 13th from Dellin Betances and stole second. Gomes went to a full count before pulling his bouncer just inside the third-base bag, easily scoring Jackson. The Indians poured out of their dugout to mob Gomes, who ended the 5-hour, 8-minute thriller.
The Indians posted their biggest comeback win in postseason history, overcoming an 8-3 deficit, a terrible start by ace Corey Kluber and a potentially serious injury to slugger Edwin Encarnacion.
Francisco Lindor hit a grand slam in the sixth to rally Cleveland, right after a close call on a hit by pitch that the Yankees didn’t challenge.
New York had its chances late, but the Yankees stranded the go-ahead run at third in the ninth and 10th — and had pinch-runner Ronald Torreyes picked off second in the 11th by Gomes from the behind the plate.
Cleveland will try for a sweep in Game 3 Sunday at Yankee Stadium. Carlos Carrasco is set to start for the Indians against Masahiro Tanaka.
Jay Bruce connected for a solo shot in the Cleveland eighth that made it 8-all. As they’ve done so many times in a season becoming more special by the day, the defending AL champions battled back and can now put the Yankees away in New York — just as they did in the 2007 ALDS.
Josh Tomlin, who had been scheduled to start later in the series, pitched two perfect innings for the win.
Aaron Hicks hit a three-run homer off Kluber and Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird hit tworun shots for the Yankees, who may have caught a bad break before Lindor’s homer.
Down 8-3, facing New York’s vaunted bullpen, the Indians came back.
Cubs top Nationals 3-0 in Game 1
Relying on precision rather than power, Kyle Hendricks pitched the Chicago Cubs to another winning start in October.
Hendricks outdueled Stephen Strasburg on the mound, and the Cubs opened defense of their first World Series title in 108 years by beating the Washington Nationals 3-0 Friday in Game 1 of their NL Division Series.
Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo produced RBI singles in the sixth inning for the first two hits off an otherwise-dominant Strasburg. Hendricks was even better, giving up only two singles in seven strong innings.
Rizzo added an RBI double off reliever Ryan Madson in the eighth. Carl Edwards Jr. threw a perfect inning and Wade Davis finished the two-hitter for a save.