CLEVELAND: The Indians peppered the opposite field to power their way to a 7-6 win over the tenacious Houston Astros on Wednesday night at Progressive Field.
The Astros rallied three times before closer Cody Allen finally quieted them for good, securing a four-out save to escape the eighth inning with the tying run on second and cruising through the ninth.
“Fortunately, [Allen] got out of it and then held them, because, man, they keep coming at you,” Indians manager Terry Francona said of the Astros. “I think there’s a lot of qualities about both teams that are kind of similar. Fortunately we answered a couple times because they weren’t going to quit playing.”
Facing Astros right-handed starter Lance McCullers (2-1), the Indians found early success going the other way with four hits to left field by left-handed hitters that resulted in a quick 3-0 lead.
Carlos Santana singled to left-center and Francisco Lindor drew a walk to open the first inning. Michael Brantley followed with a drive to the wall in left-center that ricocheted off the glove of Josh Reddick, scoring a run. Edwin Encarnacion then drove a ball to the opposite field for a sacrifice fly to bring home the second run in the inning.
Jose Ramirez added an RBI double, again off the glove of a diving Reddick in left-center field, to push the Indians’ advantage to 3-0. It was Ramirez’s team-leading 18th RBI of the season.
One night after Reddick robbed Jason Kipnis of a homer in Tuesday’s Tribe loss, he twice came up just short Wednesday in the first inning.
Kipnis singled to left before McCullers finally escaped by inducing Lonnie Chisenhall to hit into an inning-ending double play. But by then the damage had been done, all of it on hits to the opposite field.
With the lead cut to 3-2 in the fifth, the Indians (11-9) continued to go the other way with positive results. Santana walked and Lindor doubled down the left-field line to put two in scoring position. Both came home on a two-run single by Brantley, giving him a three-RBI night.
The Astros (14-7) twice cut the Indians’ lead to one with two-run home runs against starting pitcher Trevor Bauer. In the fourth, Evan Gattis belted a home run — estimated at 433 feet — to center field. Two innings later, Brian McCann hit a two-run shot to center field to cut the lead to 5-4.
Bauer (2-2) allowed four runs on six hits and struck out eight in six innings.
Santana added on again in the sixth, ripping a two-run double to right field, this time to the pull side.
Andrew Miller entered in the seventh with a 7-4 lead but ran into trouble after a Santana error. The Astros loaded the bases when Reddick walked and Carlos Beltran was hit by a pitch.
In one of the best possible matchups in baseball today, Miller faced Carlos Correa representing the go-ahead run. The two battled for eight pitches before Miller finally won the duel with a wicked slider for a strikeout. He did the same with Brian McCann, striking him out looking with another slider to end the threat.
An inning later, now facing Bryan Shaw, the Astros responded with a two-run double by Martin Gonzalez to slice the lead to one run for the third time.
Ryan Lewis can be reached at rlewis@thebeaconjournal.com.