HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Nelson Vel\u00e1zquez hit a two-run single in the eighth inning to break a scoreless tie, Hayden Wesneski and two relievers combined on a three-hitter and the Houston Astros defeated the Chicago White Sox 2-0 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
With one out in the eighth, Yordan Alvarez singled and Isaac Paredes walked before Jose Altuve was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Pinch-runner Nick Allen was thrown out at home trying to score on a grounder by Daulton Varsho back to Sean Newcomb (2-4) before Vel\u00e1zquez laced his single into left-center field.<\/p>\n
Wesneski allowed one hit with five strikeouts over seven shutout innings. He has allowed one run and five hits over his last three starts, a span of 17 innings. A.J. Blubaugh (5-2) gave up two hits in the eighth before Josh Hader pitched the ninth for his 22nd save.<\/p>\n
Wesneski retired 14 of the last 15 batters he faced, including 12 straight between a one-out walk to Sam Antonacci in the third and a one-out walk to Braden Montgomery in the seventh.<\/p>\n
Davis Martin scattered five hits with three strikeouts over 5 2\/3 scoreless innings in his first start since Aug. 13. Martin, who had been on the 15-day injured list with a right middle finger blister, was activated before the game.<\/p>\n
The White Sox had several chances to score in the eighth, but came up empty. Tristan Peters hit a leadoff triple, but was thrown out at home two batters later while trying to score on a groundout by Antonacci to shortstop Jeremy Pe\u00f1a. Munetaka Murakami singled to load the bases with one out, but Miguel Vargas grounded into a double play to end the inning.<\/p>\n
RHP Luis Castillo (4-10, 5.31 ERA) starts Thursday for the White Sox opposite RHP Hunter Brown (4-3, 3.33 ERA) for the Astros in the finale of the four-game series.<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 Nelson Vel\u00e1zquez hit a two-run single in the eighth inning to break a scoreless tie,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,2561,854,5285,1432,1328,893,5828,817,1109,331,4154,4,17102,2270,9500,9501,9496,9497,15187,9499,17709,751,30019,396,97506,2562,2264],"class_list":["post-795638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-white-sox","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-chicagowhitesox","tag-daulton-varsho","tag-davis-martin","tag-hayden-wesneski","tag-hunter-brown","tag-isaac-paredes","tag-jeremy-pena","tag-jose-altuve","tag-josh-hader","tag-luis-castillo","tag-miguel-vargas","tag-mlb","tag-nelson-velazquez","tag-nick-allen","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40784-ap-illinois-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-sam-antonacci","tag-sean-newcomb","tag-tristan-peters","tag-white-sox","tag-white-sox-astros-score","tag-whitesox","tag-yordan-alvarez"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}