{"id":235934,"date":"2025-09-18T08:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T08:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/235934\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T08:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T08:31:12","slug":"altuves-homer-lifts-astros-to-sweep-rangers-take-al-west-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/235934\/","title":{"rendered":"Altuve’s homer lifts Astros to sweep Rangers, take AL West lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOUSTON — – Jose Altuve<\/a> hit a two-run home run and Jeremy Pe\u00f1a homered and doubled to help the Houston Astros<\/a> complete a three-game sweep of the Texas Rangers<\/a> with a 5-2 win Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

The victory coupled with Seattle’s loss to Kansas City<\/a> moves the Astros 1\/2 game ahead of the Mariners for first place in the AL West.<\/p>\n

The game was tied 2-2 when Carlos Correa<\/a> singled to start the third. Altuve’s home run off Jacob deGrom<\/a> (12-8) to the seats in left field put the Astros on top 4-2. Altuve has 37 homers and 100 RBI in his career against the Rangers, which are his most against any team.<\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1a connected off deGrom on his home run to the first row in right field to start Houston’s fifth and push the lead to 5-2.<\/p>\n

Cristian Javier<\/a> (2-3) allowed five hits and two runs in six strong innings for the win in his seventh start after missing more than a year recovering from Tommy John surgery. Bryan King<\/a> pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save.<\/p>\n

DeGrom yielded six hits and tied a season-high with five runs. He lasted just five innings after the Astros forced him to throw 35 pitches in the first.<\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1a hit a leadoff double before a single by Correa. There were two outs in the inning when Yainer Diaz’s single scored them both to give Houston an early lead.<\/p>\n

Alejandro Osuna<\/a> singled with one out in the second and stole second base. The Rangers cut the lead to 2-1 on an RBI double by Josh Jung<\/a>. Cody Freeman<\/a> singled with two outs to send Jung home and tie it.<\/p>\n

The Rangers went 2 for 8 with runners in scoring position as they lost their fourth straight game.<\/p>\n

Key moment<\/p>\n

Altuve’s home run that put Houston up for good.<\/p>\n

Key stat<\/p>\n

The win gives the Astros a 7-6 advantage in the season series against the Rangers. They’ve won the series, called the Silver Boot, every year since 2017.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Both teams are off Thursday before Texas hosts the opener of a three-game series against Miami on Friday night and the Mariners come to Houston to start a key division series that night.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON — – Jose Altuve hit a two-run home run and Jeremy Pe\u00f1a homered and doubled to help…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":235935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[126719,5723,2382,1266,62,1278,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-235934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-126719","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-houston-astros","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-texas-rangers","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115224371854988476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}