HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 John Rave hit a two-run homer, Michael Massey added a solo shot and the Kansas City Royals beat the Houston 5-2 on Wednesday night, dropping the Astros into a first-place tie with the Texas Rangers in the AL West.<\/p>\n
The Astros own the tiebreaker over the Rangers with both teams at 76-76, but this is the first time since Aug. 24 that Houston has not been alone in first place. Whichever team doesn’t win the division could still make the playoffs as a wild card.<\/p>\n
Rave\u2019s sixth homer came in the fourth inning off Astros starter Cristian Javier (2-6).<\/p>\n
Massey led off a three-run eighth inning with his 12th homer of the season and third hit of the night. After the Royals scored another run on a throwing error by right fielder Jorge Barrosa, Carter Jensen capped the frame with an RBI double.<\/p>\n
Daniel Lynch IV (6-5) allowed two hits and struck out three in five scoreless innings. Craig Kimbrel worked around a one-out single to complete a scoreless sixth.<\/p>\n
Nolan Hoffman allowed singles to two of the three batters he faced in the seventh inning, but Anthony Gose ended the threat by striking out pinch-hitter Nelson Velazquez and getting Daulton Varsho to fly out.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Pe\u00f1a was 3 for 4 with a double, his second consecutive three-hit game for Houston. Yainer Diaz homered in the ninth inning.<\/p>\n
Javier allowed two runs on five hits over 5 1\/3 innings for Houston.<\/p>\n
RHP Seth Lugo (7-8, 4.99 ERA) will start for the Royals when the series concludes on Thursday. The Astros had not announced a starter.<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON (AP) \u2014 John Rave hit a two-run homer, Michael Massey added a solo shot and the Kansas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[2061,5,847,6175,4725,854,139,5828,16152,1437,936,2123,55,2596,2595,2128,4,17102,9500,9501,9496,9497,83589,82856,9499,252,9983,2002,1567,5355],"class_list":["post-806984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kansas-city-royals","tag-anthony-gose","tag-baseball","tag-craig-kimbrel","tag-cristian-javier","tag-daniel-lynch","tag-daulton-varsho","tag-houston","tag-jeremy-pena","tag-john-rave","tag-jorge-barrosa","tag-kansas","tag-kansas-city","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-kansascity","tag-kansascityroyals","tag-michael-massey","tag-mlb","tag-nelson-velazquez","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-40787-ap-kansas-sports-only","tag-product-40795-ap-missouri-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-royals","tag-royals-astros-score","tag-seth-lugo","tag-texas","tag-yainer-diaz"],"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\/806984","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=806984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}