Yordan Alvarez produced the 21st multi-home run game of his career and his sixth this season and Ronel Blanco logged five scoreless innings as the Houston Astros completed a four-game sweep of the visiting Kansas City Royals with a 7-2 victory on Sunday.
Alvarez blasted leadoff homers in the fourth and sixth innings to help carry the Astros (75-62), who moved a season-best 13 games over .500 with their fifth consecutive victory.
With his 29th home run in the fourth, Alvarez posted his first dinger at home since June 22 against Baltimore. In the interim, he had socked 12 on the road, including three in the Astros’ Wednesday win at Philadelphia.
The Astros broke through against Royals right-hander Alec Marsh (7-8) with the first Alvarez blast, a 369-foot drive to right field that snapped a scoreless tie. Four batters later, Jon Singleton extended the Houston lead to 3-0 with his 396-foot shot to right that drove home Ben Gamel, who had worked a two-out walk. The homer was Singleton’s 12th of the season.
Alvarez, who joined Jeff Bagwell as the only Astros with four consecutive 30-homer seasons, just missed a third dinger in the eighth with a 366-foot fly ball corralled by Royals right fielder Tommy Pham at the wall in right-center. Alvarez was the lone batter retied by Royals reliever John Schreiber, who allowed singles to Mauricio Dubon and Jose Altuve before Yainer Diaz followed Alvarez with an RBI double and Jeremy Pena chased Schreiber with a two-run single.
Alvarez and Dubon posted multi-hit games. Alvarez, Pena and Singleton had two RBIs each.
Blanco (10-6) snapped an eight-start winless streak by limiting the Royals (75-63) to three hits and four walks while recording three strikeouts. He retired the side in order only once, doing so in the top of the second inning. Blanco worked around a pair of walks in the first, a one-out single from Pham in the third, and walks to MJ Melendez and Freddy Fermin in the fourth.
With two runners on base and one out in the fifth, Blanco preserved his sixth scoreless outing this season by getting Bobby Witt Jr. to roll a grounder to Singleton at first before recording a strikeout of Michael Massey. Blanco earned his first win since July 9 against the Miami Marlins.
Witt homered for the second consecutive game off Astros reliever Hector Neris. His solo shot to left with one out in the seventh was his 30th this season, making Witt the first player in franchise history with consecutive 30-homer campaigns.
Marsh allowed three runs on four hits in five innings. He fanned five and walked one.
–Field Level Media
