Chas McCormick hit a two-run homer in the second and a tiebreaking shot in the sixth to lift the Houston Astros to a 3-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians on Wednesday.
The victory completes a three-game sweep and comes a day after Framber Valdez threw the 16th no-hitter in franchise history in a 2-0 win Tuesday night.
It’s the third multi-homer game of McCormick’s career and second this season.
He led the way on a day the Astros went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position.
“You’ve got to have some guys hot in there, especially when you’re leaving runners on base because we had opportunities to blow that game open many times,” manager Dusty Baker said. “So I’m just glad that Chas had a big day.”
Oscar Gonzalez reached on an error by second baseman Mauricio Dubón to start the ninth. But Ryan Pressly struck out Bo Naylor before retiring Gabriel Arias on a fly ball and striking out Steven Kwan to end it and get his 26th save.
Houston’s Ronel Blanco, who was recalled from Triple-A Sugar Land before the game, yielded five hits and two runs with four walks in four innings. Phil Maton (3-3) allowed one hit in the sixth for the win.
Will Brennan doubled for Cleveland with one out in the eighth before David Fry walked. But Brayan Rocchio grounded into a double play to end the threat.
The Guardians have dropped five of their last six games.
“We hit about three balls to the wrong part of the ballpark. … we needed one of those to be somewhere else because we didn’t have a ton of opportunities,” manager Terry Francona said.
Cleveland starter Tanner Bibee allowed seven hits and two runs in five innings.
