Yordan homers twice as Astros complete sweep of Royals

Blanco completes five scoreless innings

In Yuli Gurriel’s return to Houston after leaving during the 2022 offseason, the Astros started the game off looking lost at the plate. With just one hit in the first three innings and four strikeouts, it was looking like a game with cold bats. That was until the fourth inning when the lineup started to click. Leading off the inning was Yordan Alvarez who, after grounding out in his first at-bat, launched a 0-1 curveball 102 MPH off his bat over the right field wall to get the scoring started and put the Astros up 1-0.

A Yainer Diaz strikeout and Jeremy Peña walk followed the homer and after Ben Gamel drew a two-out walk, Jon Singleton would step up to the plate and tack on two more runs for the Astros, smacking a two-run shot 396 ft. to right center, putting them up 3-0 in the fourth. These runs helped give starter Ronel Blanco a cushion as he went out for his fifth and final inning of the game.

After allowing back-to-back one-out singles, Blanco found himself with runners at the corners and after falling behind 2-1, comes back to strikeout the final batter of the inning with a changeup, getting him out of the jam and putting him in line for the win. Shay Witcomb led off the fifth with a single before Dubón grounded into a double play which was followed by an Altuve groundout.

After five innings of shutout baseball and 101 pitches, Blanco was done and the first man out of the pen was Taylor Scott, who was making his 58^th appearance of the season. Usually extremely reliable, with his 1.97 season ERA, the Royals got their first run across the board on him after a one-out walk and back-to-back singles plated MJ Melendez, with Yuli getting the RBI, and put them back by only two. Scott followed this up with two strikeouts to end the inning.

The Stros would get that run right back though on new Royals pitcher Sam Long who replaced starter Alec Marsh. With Yordan leading off, he smacked his 2^nd home run of the game and 30^th of the season, marking his fourth consecutive 30 home run season and moving him to third in Astros history for 30-homer seasons. That also marks his sixth multi-homer game this season. Scott was replaced after his one inning of work with Héctor Naris who started the inning out with a quick two-pitch groundout to Tommy Pham, All-Star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. stepped up to the plate and, for his second night in a row, launched a ball over the Crawford Boxes for a home run, giving him 30 on the season and bringing the Royals back to within two.

Naris finished the inning off with a strikeout and groundout and brought out Carlos Hernández to pitch for the Royals. He struck out Singleton, Meyers and Whitcomb in order and brought the game into the eighth. The Astros went with Bryan Abreu out of the pen who was making his team high 68^th appearance and his third in three days. After allowed a leadoff double to Melendez and bringing the tying run to the plate, he got three groundouts in a row to get out of the jam and keep the Astros in front.

After leadoff singles from Dubón and Altuve and a flyout from Alvarez, an 0-3 Yainer Diaz stepped up to bat. Red hot at the plate coming off his third straight month of hitting over .300 with at least 10 RBI, he smoked a double into right center to score Dubón and increase his RBI total to an already team leading 75 and Peña followed that up with two-RBI single into center, putting the Astros up 7-2. Keleb Ort came out to close the game and it only took him nine pitches to sit down Isbel, Pham and Witt in order and secure the teams 75^th win and complete the sweep of the Royals.