Jake Odorizzi twirled five shutout innings, Aledmys Diaz clubbed a grand slam and the Houston Astros capped a sweep of their seven-game homestand with a 5-0 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.
Alex Bregman slugged his fifth home run of the year and Astros right-handed relievers Cristian Javier and Hector Neris completed the one-hit shutout.
Odorizzi (3-2) needed just 34 pitches to complete one trip through the Detroit lineup. When he ran into trouble with one-out walks to Robbie Grossman and Miguel Cabrera in the fourth, Odorizzi recovered with flyouts off the bats of Jeimer Candelario and Jonathan Schoop.
Odorizzi allowed one hit and two walks while posting five strikeouts to continue what has been an exceptional three-start stretch. He has surrendered one run on six hits and four walks with 12 strikeouts over 17 2/3 innings during that span.
The Tigers started reliever Wily Peralta as the opener for their bullpen day. He scuffled over his two innings yet kept the Astros off the scoreboard despite walking three batters and surrendering a leadoff single to Diaz in the second. Diaz struck a far bigger blow in his second at-bat, driving a 1-0 fastball from Tigers right-hander Drew Hutchinson (0-3) out to left-center.
Hutchinson surrendered a leadoff single to Jose Altuve before issuing walks to Bregman and Yordan Alvarez with one out. Hutchinson rallied to strike out Kyle Tucker but Diaz followed with his second home run this season and third career grand slam as Houston took a 4-0 lead.
Bregman followed with his solo shot in the fifth inning off Tigers right-hander Joe Jimenez.
Per Elias Sports Bureau, the Astros completed a homestand of at least seven games unbeaten for the first time since May 2003, when they swept the Florida Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates in succession. Houston blanked the Seattle Mariners twice before winning the finale of that three-game series 7-2 on May 4.
The Tigers mustered only six runs while dropping all four games of this weekend series. They finished 1-for-30 with runners in scoring position in the series.
–Field Level Media