HOUSTON, TX – Once upon a time, he was the de facto leader of Crush City. Today, Captain Crush was back.
Carlos Correa, who has been open about his excitement of being back in Houston for a whole season and the high expectations he has for this team, hit a 3-run homer in the fifth to put the Astros ahead for good as Houston completed a 3-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox today at Daikin Park.
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Correa demolished a 1-2 slider from Red Sox All-Star starter Garrett Crochet (L, 1-1) 402 feet and into the Crawfish Boxes to give the Astros a 5-2 lead.
Correa’s shot left like a laser at 106.7 MPH. Correa is hitting .296 through 7 games with an .811 OPS. The HR gave the Astros a lead they would never relinquish on the way to a 6-4 victory.
Correa spoke with SCHN’s Julia Morales postgame:
Correa’s bomb made a winner of starter Mike Burrows, whose second start was notably better than his first. Burrows threw 5 innings of 2 run ball, allowing 5 hits and 3 walks while striking out 6. Burrows improved to 1-1 on the season.
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The Astros also got run producing contributions from Isaac Paredes and Christian Walker, as well as a solo HR from catcher Christian Vazquez:
Relievers A.J. Blubaugh and Bryan King each pitched clean innings for the Astros in the 6th and 7th innings. Blubaugh registered a strikeout and King had a pair of Ks.
Bryan Abreu came on for the 9th in a save situation at 6-3. He surrendered a solo home run to the Red Sox’ leadoff man in the 9th, Roman Anthony, but then settled down and struck out the next 3 batters for his first save of the season.
More importantly, Abreu was back throwing his fastball in his more customary 96-97 MPH range.
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With the victory, the Astros improved to 5-2 on the season, and lead the AL West by a half-game over the Texas Rangers.
They will have an off day Thursday and then open a 3-game series Friday in Sacramento against the Athletics. Cristian Javier will get the start Friday against Jeffrey Springs.