HOUSTON — For all the good work the Astros did on the mound Sunday afternoon at Minute Maid Park — they struck out 20 batters in a franchise-record nine-inning game — it wouldn’t have meant much if they hadn’t been able to polish the blow of the angels.
That wasn’t on Jeremy Peña’s mind when he came to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning with the game tied, but the party he got started by hitting a two-out, two-run homer off Ryan Segara to send the Astros to a 4- -2 allowed Houston to celebrate one of its most enjoyable wins of the season.
Peña, who is competing for the American League Rookie of the Year award after taking over the starting job from Carlos Correa, went a career-best 4-for-5 and recorded the first multi-homer game of his career. He also singled to right field in the fourth inning.
“To end up with a shutout is unreal,” said Peña, who hit a walk-off homer against the Blue Jays on April 24. “It’s always fun to fall. You win and we go home. It was great.”
The Astros (51-27) won their sixth straight game and opened a 13 1/2-game lead atop the AL West after sweeping the Angels. Houston allowed six runs during that streak, all but one of which came via solo homers.
“It was a good win,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “Everyone went home happy. Peña had a big day. He had four hits and one strikeout, and then [Jose] Altuve had a big day. And so we had some other guys have big days.”
Altuve, who went 3-for-5 in his 1,500th career game, started the ninth-inning rally with a two-out single. Peña, who was batting second, knew Sega didn’t want to face shortstop Jordan Alvarez, who was on deck, so he figured he’d get a shot to hit — and he did, crushing a first-pitch slider and sending it over Mike Trout’s head in center field for a Statcast-predicted 429-foot two-run homer.
“Find a good shot for a shot and pass it to the next one,” Peña said.
The Astros were hitless until the fourth as the Angels sent Houston to its largest deficit of the game since June 18 with a solo homer in the second by Luis Rengifo and an RBI single in the third by Shohei Ohtani off starter Framber Valdez for a 2- 0.
Valdez made his 13th straight quality start and recorded a career-high 13 hits (over five innings), recording 12 straight strikeouts from the final out of the first inning to the second out of the fifth, giving up some hits and walk between the gusts. It broke the previous franchise record of nine consecutive strikeouts, which was accomplished four times by three pitchers: Gerrit Cole twice, Randy Johnson and Don Wilson.
“I was a little uncomfortable with all the walks I gave up today, but when I focused I said I was going to hit more batters and attack the zone,” Valdez said. “I was excited about all the hitting, but I was definitely a little uncomfortable with all the walks.”
After Valdez, the Astros became the first team in Major League history to strike out 48 batters in a three-game streak without going into extra innings, according to STATS. That included nine strikeouts by Trout, who went 0-for-11 in the series.
“That lineup there, they don’t chase a lot,” catcher Martin Maldonado said. “They’re always going to be in the strike zone. Framber, he wasn’t attacking the strike zone like he was in the past, and so after the second inning we talked about it and said, “You’ve got to throw these guys strikes and let them get away with that sinker and the curve. And that’s pretty much what we did.”
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