Astros beat Angels, clinch AL West

HOUSTON — George Springer hit a career-high three homers, Justin Verlander posted his MLB-leading 20th win and the Houston Astros clinched their third straight AL West title in grand fashion, routing the Los Angeles Angels 13-5 on Sunday.

A crowd at Minute Maid Park that was cheering from Verlander’s first pitch got even louder as Springer homered three times in the first four innings. The Astros kept breaking away and improved to 102-54, a half-game ahead of the New York Yankees for the best record in the majors.

After the final out, the Astros held a bouncing group hug in the middle of the diamond and posed for a team picture. It hasn’t been determined who they will face in the playoffs as they try for their second World Series championship in three years.

Verlander (20-6) yielded six hits and two runs in five innings to reach 20 wins for the second time in his career and the first since winning the AL MVP and Cy Young Award in 2011 when he went 24-5 for Detroit. This year’s AL Cy Young front-runner struck out five to leave him six strikeouts shy of becoming the 18th pitcher in MLB history to reach 3,000.

Verlander, who leads the AL with a 2.53 ERA, is the first Astros pitcher to win 20 games since Dallas Keuchel went 20-8 in 2015 when he won the Cy Young.

The Astros won their ninth division title. They took the NL West in 1980 and 1986, the NL Central in 1997-99 and 2001 and their three most recent titles in the AL.

Springer’s homered on his first three at-bats to help Houston take a 4-2 lead in the fourth inning. The Astros added six runs in a fifth, highlighted by a two-run homer from Alex Bregman to make it 10-2.

Springer, who has a career-best 38 home runs this season, got to work immediately, sending Jose Rodriguez’s first pitch into left-center field for his franchise-record 12th leadoff homer this season. That left him one shy of the MLB record for leadoff homers in a season set by Alfonso Soriano with the Yankees in 2003.

Jared Walsh and Michael Hermosillo hit back-toback triples with two outs in the second to tie it up.

Cardinals 3, Cubs 2

CHICAGO — Paul Goldschmidt hit a tiebreaking double in the ninth inning and St. Louis clinched a playoff spot by rallying past Chicago for their first four-game sweep at Wrigley Field in almost a century.

NL Central-leading St. Louis qualified for the postseason for the first time since 2015 and stayed three games ahead of Milwaukee. It was the fifth consecutive win for the Cardinals, who came back for a 9-8 victory Saturday on consecutive homers by Yadier Molina and Paul DeJong against Craig Kimbrel in the ninth.

Chicago manager Joe Maddon sent a dominant Yu Darvish (6-8) back to the mound for the ninth to go for his first complete game since 2014. But the result was the same in the Cubs’ fifth consecutive one-run loss.

Pinch hitter José Martínez sparked the winning rally with a leadoff triple that glanced off the glove of diving center fielder Albert Almora Jr. Dexter Fowler followed with a sacrifice fly, tying it at 2.

After rookie Tommy Edman singled and stole second, Goldschmidt hit a grounder down the thirdbase line to put the Cardinals in front for good in the Cubs’ rainy home finale.

Miles Mikolas pitched 7 2/3 innings of two-run ball and Tyler Webb (2-1) got the last out of the eighth for the win. Andrew Miller worked the ninth for his sixth save.

Nicholas Castellanos hit his career-high 27th homer for Chicago (82-74), which dropped four games back of the Brewers for the second NL wild card. The Cubs finished with a 51-30 home record after losing their losing their last six games of the year at Wrigley.

It was the first four-game series sweep for St. Louis (89-67) at Chicago’s famed ballpark since May 1921.

Castellanos also scored the first run of the game when he scampered home on Yadier Molina’s passed ball in the first. But DeJong tied it with his 29th homer, a massive drive to Waveland Avenue in the third.

Rangers 8, Athletics 3

OAKLAND, Calif. — Willie Calhoun hit two of Texas’ five homers and the Rangers slowed the Oakland Athletics’ wild-card push with an 8-3 victory Sunday.

The A’s had won 10 of 11 but couldn’t stretch their two-game lead over Tampa Bay for the top AL wild card. The Rays fell to the Boston Red Sox 7-4 earlier Sunday.

Texas ended a seven-game skid. Shin-Soo Choo, Elvis Andrus and Nomar Mazara all went deep to help the Rangers salvage the final game of their last road trip this season. Three of the five home runs came on first pitches, helping Texas avoid its first winless multicity trip since 1991.

Jurickson Profar had three hits and an RBI for the A’s. Marcus Semien doubled twice.

Oakland starter Tanner Roark (10-9) took a threegame winning streak into the day but fell behind early after Choo belted his first pitch 461 feet to center field. The ball landed in the seats above a row of luxury suites. Only A’s first baseman Matt Olson and Angels slugger Mike Trout have reached that area this season.

Calhoun homered to right two batters later, and Andrus’ two-run drive to left made it 4-0.

Calhoun connected off Roark again in the third for his 20th home run. It’s the second career multihome run game for Calhoun, who grew up about 35 miles northeast of Oakland.

Roark allowed five runs and six hits in three innings, and the A’s lost their final regular season home game for the second straight season.

Texas scored twice off A.J. Puk in the fourth before Mazara hit a first-pitch home run off Ryan Buchter leading off the fifth.

Giants 4, Braves 1

ATLANTA — Rookie Logan Webb allowed only two hits and one run in six innings, Evan Longoria drove in two runs with two hits and San Francisco beat Dallas Keuchel and Atlanta.

Braves manager Brian Snitker, preparing the NL East champions for the playoffs, rested outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr., third baseman Josh Donaldson and second baseman Ozzie Albies. Albies had his second straight day off before reaching on a pinch-hit single in the ninth.

Webb (2-2) was sharp in his seventh start, preventing the Braves from a three-game sweep in their final regular-season game at SunTrust Park.

Webb struck out seven. He opened the game with five scoreless innings before Adeiny Hechavarría tripled in the sixth and scored on Freddie Freeman’s groundout.

Relievers Tyler Rogers and Will Smith closed out the combined five-hitter. Smith pitched the ninth for his 34th save.

After being outscored 14-1 in losing the first two games of the series, the Giants scored three runs in the sixth off Keuchel (8-7).

Longoria was only 2 for 17 on the road trip before driving in Austin Slater with a double to right-center off Keuchel in the sixth. Joey Rickard’s double to left field drove in Longoria and Kevin Pillar, who reached on shortstop Dansby Swanson’s fielding error.

Longoria added a run-scoring single off Luke Jackson in the seventh.

Rickard and Mike Yastrzemski had two hits. Webb allowed only one baserunner through four innings before issuing back-to-back walks to Matt Joyce and Tyler Flowers with one out in the fifth. After the right-hander threw two straight balls to Billy Hamilton, pitching coach Curt Young visited the rookie on the mound.

Webb recovered by striking out Hamilton and Keuchel to end the inning.

Keuchel allowed three runs, two of them earned, on six hits in six innings.