Fiers, Bregman lead Astros past Indians 6-2
Bregman hot, but club could be hurt by starters failing to remain in game
CLEVELAND — A day after snapping a seven-game winning streak of the American Leagueleading Rangers, the Astros put an end to a six-game streak of the AL’s second-best team.
A 6-2 victory over the Indians on Monday night at Progressive Field allowed the Astros to keep pace in the AL wild-card race. They remain two games behind the Orioles and Tigers. The result evened the Astros’ record through four days of their 13-game gantlet against first-place teams. Alex Bregman had a hand in half of the team’s runs, launching his seventh home run in 19 games in compiling his fourth consecutive multi-hit game.
Bregman enters Tuesday night’s matchup with
Cy Young Award candidate Corey Kluber batting .266 with a .799 on-base plus slugging percentage, impressive given the 22-year-old rookie’s 1-for34 start.
“It’s been fun because we’ve been winning,” he said. “That’s all I’m really focused on, to be honest with you. I couldn’t care less what my numbers say at the end of the year. I just want to win games for the Astros.”
The Astros’ core four — George Springer, Bregman, Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa — accounted for six of the team’s 11 hits and scored each of the team’s runs against a mish mash of eight Indians relievers in the three-hour, 44-minute series opener.
Altuve’s multi-hit performance was uncharacteristically his first in more than two weeks. Springer, Bregman and Correa each reached base three times.
It was a near-must win for the Astros, who in the series’ final three games face Kluber (3.09 ERA), Carlos Carrasco (3.06) and Trevor Bauer (3.70).
“It’s a big win for us to come into this place and beat a first-place team,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “Regardless of how they line their pitching up, you’ve got to win as many games as you can.
“That was the lovable September marathon that we all enjoy. Better to be on the winning side than the losing side, but that one seemed like it was never going to end.”
Before the Astros’ three-run seventh broke open the game, Bregman’s home run stood as the game-changing swing.
Bregman tees off
After Springer led off the third inning with a walk, Bregman offered at the first pitch he saw from Jeff Manship and lifted it over the left-field wall.
Bregman also scored the game’s first run, on Altuve’s first-inning double off Mike Clevinger. He singled in the eighth.
Mike Fiers allowed only two runs but lasted just five innings, enough for the win but not enough to instill much confidence in a rotation suddenly lacking Dallas Keuchel (shoulder inflammation) in addition to Lance McCullers (elbow sprain).
The Astros have gone five games without a starter completing six innings, dating to Collin McHugh’s outing last Tuesday against Oakland.
Fiers, the lone pitcher in that span to finish five, limited the Indians’ damage despite allowing seven hits and issuing a pair of walks. The 31-year-old righthander stranded six baserunners, all in the first three innings, exhausting 49 pitches to record his first six outs and 69 pitches to record his first nine.
Francisco Lindor produced the Indians’ first run, smacking a ball to right field and negating a near-perfect throw to second base from Teoscar Hernandez by sliding around Altuve’s tag. Lindor scored on a Jose Ramirez single, Cleveland’s lone score until Mike Napoli crushed a solo homer off the leftfield foul pole in the fifth.
Tony Sipp and Pat Neshek combined for a scoreless sixth to set the stage for the Astros’ best offensive inning, which included a pair of infield singles and a throwing error by Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis.
Rushed into service
Michael Feliz struck out four over two scoreless innings and Jandel Gustave logged a perfect ninth.
If Astros starters don’t pitch deeper into games, the likes of the 23-yearolds Feliz and Gustave will be forced into more such late-game opportunities in the season’s stretch run.
“Some guys that aren’t normally in these games that are somewhat close got some experience to get the final outs,” Hinch said. “A good win and not necessarily how you draw it up and certainly not as efficient as we usually are, but a win is a win.”