Chas McCormick homered, Jake Meyers had two hits and the Houston Astros beat the Colorado Rockies 4-1 in Denver on Wednesday.
Brandon Bielak (5-5) pitched well over 5 2/3 innings and combined with four Houston relievers to hold Colorado to two hits.
C.J. Cron homered for Colorado, which finished its homestand 3-2 against the New York Yankees and Astros.
Houston improved to 22-6 against the Rockies since the start of 2013 and finished 3-1 against them this season. Bielak earned two of those wins.
The Astros broke through in the third inning. Meyers led off with a double, went to third on Martin Maldonado’s flyout to center and scored on Mauricio Dubon’s single up the middle to give Houston a 1-0 lead. Kyle Tucker hit a deep fly ball to the warning track in center for the third out.
The Astros added on in the sixth inning off Rockies starter Austin Gomber. Tucker led off with a double off the wall in right field and moved to third on Alex Bregman’s flyout to right.
Jose Abreu singled through a pulled-in infield to make it 2-0, and then went to second on a wild pitch. McCormick homered to left into the teeth of the wind to pad the lead. It was his 12th homer of the season.
Gomber (8-8) allowed four runs on eight hits and struck out five in six innings.
That was enough for Bielak, who had his second strong start against Colorado. Bielak tossed seven scoreless innings against the Rockies on July 4 for the win, and he blanked them into the sixth on Wednesday.
Bielak’s lone blemish was three walks, two of which came in the sixth inning, which was the only time Colorado had a runner advance past first base against him. The threat ended when reliever Phil Maton struck out Cron to end the inning.
Cron hit his 10th homer of the season in the ninth inning to end the shutout.
–Field Level Media
