Houston: Houston’s Evan Gattis hit a three-run homer and Luis Valbuena added a go-ahead solo shot in a five-run third inning that lifted the American League-leading Astros to a 6-4 win against Baltimore on Tuesday.
The victory moved the Astros five games clear atop the AL West division as their nearest rivals, the Los Angeles Angels, lost to an outstanding performance by Tampa Bay’s rookie pitcher Chris Archer.
In the National League, Pittsburgh continued their form surge by downing San Francisco and San Diego dropped the New York Mets out of the NL East lead.
Baltimore got on top of Houston early with a four-run second inning, but the Astros responded in the next frame and went on to post a majors-leading 17th come-from-behind win this season.
Houston trailed by 3 when the homer by Gattis made it 4-4 and the Astros went back to back when Valbuena homered to right field.
Tampa Bay won 6-1 at the Angels, with pitcher Archer tying a franchise record with 15 strikeouts over his eight innings.
Archer (6-4) matched James Shields’ club record set over nine innings in a game in 2012. The 26-year-old rookie did not walk a batter and allowed only the one run.
The run he did allow was Albert Pujols 14th homer of the season, moving him to 534 in his career, tied with Jimmie Foxx for 17th place on the all-time list, and putting him two behind Mickey Mantle. And he did it in his 8,134th big league at-bat — the exact same number that Foxx finished his career with.
Pittsburgh made it 10 wins in 12 games by beating San Francisco 7-4, with Andrew McCutchen having four hits and driving in two runs.
Pedro Alvarez also drove in two as the Pirates clinched a series victory in their first encounter this season with the team that they lost to in last year’s NL wild-card playoff.
The Giants have lost five straight games, and have dropped two games off the division lead.
San Diego pitcher Ian Kennedy threw six strong innings and outpitched New York’s rookie sensation Noah Syndergaard as the Padres beat the Mets 7-2.
Kennedy (3-5) broke a four-start losing sequence as he held the Mets to two runs.
Syndergaard (2-3) flashed enough quality pitches to strike out 10 but the Padres scored seven runs in four innings” Syndergaard’s shortest of his five career starts.
—AP
