HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Jeremy Pe\u00f1a went 3 for 3 with a walk and scored twice, Jose Altuve drove in two runs and the Houston Astros held on Tuesday night for a 6-5 victory over the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n
Jes\u00fas S\u00e1nchez had a two-run single for the Astros, who nearly squandered a 6-0 lead. But they remained a half-game behind red-hot Seattle for first place in the AL West and moved a half-game ahead of Boston for the second of three American League wild cards. <\/p>\n
Houston led by five when pinch-hitter Rowdy Tellez walked with two outs in the eighth inning. Jonah Heim\u2019s pinch-hit homer off Enyel De Los Santos cut it to 6-3.<\/p>\n
Kyle Higashioka singled before an RBI double by Josh Jung pulled Texas to 6-4 and chased De Los Santos.<\/p>\n
Bryan Abreu took over and walked Alejandro Osuna before pinch-hitter Adolis Garc\u00eda\u2019s run-scoring single made it 6-5. Abreu retired Cody Freeman on a flyball to end the inning.<\/p>\n
In the ninth, Abreu allowed a leadoff single to Josh Smith and a two-out single to Heim before striking out Higashioka for his seventh save.<\/p>\n
Yainer Diaz hit an RBI double in a four-run Houston fourth that made it 6-0. Texas starter Merrill Kelly (12-8) yielded nine hits and six runs in three-plus innings.<\/p>\n
Freeman hit a solo homer in the fifth for the Rangers, who have lost three straight. They are 3 1\/2 games behind Boston for the AL’s last postseason spot with 10 to play. <\/p>\n
Houston starter AJ Blubaugh allowed two hits and struck out seven over three scoreless innings in his second major league start. Colton Gordon (5-4) gave up two hits and a run in three innings of relief for the win. <\/p>\n
Key moment<\/p>\n
Abreu’s strikeout of Higashioka to complete the four-out save.<\/p>\n
Key stat<\/p>\n
The season series between the teams is tied 6-6.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Texas RHP Jacob deGrom (12-7, 2.82 ERA) opposes RHP Cristian Javier (1-3, 4.78) in the series finale Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/p>\n
Kristie Rieken, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Jeremy Pe\u00f1a went 3 for 3 with a walk and scored twice, Jose Altuve drove…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-149579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}