Winning month? It’s May-hem
Hinch gets his wish with a 2-1 start following a perfectly awful April
Manager A. J. Hinch joked before Tuesday night’s game that a win would give the Astros a winning record in May.
Call him a comedian or a fortune-teller.
Either way, Hinch’s bunch is 2-1 in May.
The Astros got after Minnesota rookie Alex Meyer in his first major league start, chasing the 6-9 righthander before he could get through three innings. They hit home runs, but it wasn’t all via the long ball, also scoring on a balk, wild pitch and a wellplaced double with runners in scoring position.
Collin McHugh mini- mized early damage and the bullpen was lights out. The result was a 6-4 victo- ry over the Twins in front of 21,153 at Minute Maid Park.
“All in all, that’s as good a win as we can expect,” Hinch said.
With another win Wednesday, the Astros can win just their second series this season and post consecutive victories for the first time.
“Things are definitely coming together,” said closer Luke Gregerson,
who picked up his sixth save. “Pitching side, hitting side, defensively. Had a couple of hiccups again, but we managed to fight through those and get the good win.”
It started with McHugh fighting through the first inning without letting the game get away.
Twins leadoff batter Danny Santana hit McHugh’s third pitch off the foul pole in right field. McHugh then walked Brian Dozier and Joe Mauer. But he escaped, getting a flyout and inning-ending double play.
“It ’s huge,” said McHugh. “When you can get a guy to roll over and get a double play, it’s a pitcher’s best friend, especially in that first inning where it didn’t start out the way we planned it.”
That was the case for McHugh, who only retired the side twice. He gave up four runs in 5 2⁄3 innings, but the Twins, despite seven hits and two walks off McHugh, couldn’t score more than once in any given frame.
“As a starter, you want to go out and throws zeros. That’s what we all want to do,” McHugh said. “But if you can’t put up zeros, then you want to limit it to one an inning.
“You don’t want to put up crooked numbers because you tend to lose game when you put up a lot of those.”
The Twins made it 2-0 in the third, but the Astros found success the second time Meyer went through the order following No. 9 hitter Jason Castro blast- ing his first home run of the season.
The opposite-field solo shot to the Crawford Boxes to start the bottom of the third was reviewed — a fan in the first row tried to catch the homer — but the homer stood.
The inning continued as Altuve and George Spring- er worked walks, and Carlos Correa doubled down the line in left to bring one run across. Springer scored on a Meyer wild pitch.
“He’s not a pitch execution-type guy,” Hinch said. “He has tremendous stuff, a great arm, but doesn’t land his breaking ball all the time, so we really want- ed to focus on making him be in the strike zone.”
Meyer lasted two more batters, exiting after 2 2⁄3 innings and 64 pitches.
The Astros got after reliever Tommy Milone in the fourth.
Carlos Gomez, who had three two-hit outings in his first 15 games, doubled to start the inning. It was his second of the night and his fourth two-hit game since April 22. He moved to third on a Luis Valbuena sacrifice bunt before Castro walked.
Milone attempted a pickoff throw to first base, but his momentum going toward the plate resulted in a balk that scored Gomez.
“When they give us an extra base via the walk or an error, we can change a scoreboard,” Hinch said.
Two batters l ater, Springer hit a Milone fastball off the railroad track and onto Crawford Street.
“It’s a pretty cool feeling,” Springer said. It held for McHugh. Ken Giles threw to one batter to end the sixth. Pat Neshek, Will Harris and Gregerson followed with three hitless innings.
“It’s what we expect,” Gregerson said. “It’s what we did last year. We don’t expect anything different than that coming into every game, and we go out there, we feed off it and we’ll continue to keep rolling hopefully.”
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