Sportsnaut
HOUSTON — Jordan Montgomery carried a shutout into the seventh inning and Leody Taveras clubbed his first career postseason home run as the Texas Rangers extended their franchise-record postseason winning streak with a 2-0 victory over the host Houston Astros in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Sunday.
Montgomery (2-0) improved to 4-0 with a 1.22 ERA over his last seven starts by limiting the Astros to five hits and one walk with six strikeouts over 6 1/3 innings. Montgomery worked seven shutout innings in a 4-0 win in Game 1 of the AL wild-card series against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Taveras finished 2-for-2 with a walk batting in the nine-hole against Astros right-hander Justin Verlander. He drilled a 1-2 slider from Verlander 398 feet into the right-field seats with one out in the fifth to double the Rangers’ lead. Texas grabbed a 1-0 advantage off Verlander (1-1) in the second when Jonah Heim followed a one-out hustle double by Evan Carter with an RBI single.
Carter started a critical double play in the eighth when he fielded a deep fly ball from Alex Bregman in the left-center gap before firing a throw in to shortstop Corey Seager, who followed with a throw to first baseman Nathaniel Lowe. Jose Altuve, who walked leading off the eighth, failed to touch second base when he rounded the bag and returned to first on the Bregman flyout. Altuve was ruled out when the Rangers challenged the play.
Montgomery faced just one batter over the minimum through two innings before running into a spot of trouble in both the third and fourth. It was his ability to record timely strikeouts that proved critical for Montgomery when the Astros created traffic on the bases trailing by one run.
Montgomery dominated his matchup with Astros left-handed slugger Yordan Alvarez, recording inning-ending strikeouts of Alvarez in the first, third and fifth innings. Alvarez swung over and missed a 3-2 curveball in the third after Bregman stroked a single to right that advanced Martin Maldonado to second base.
After recording two quick outs to open the fourth, Montgomery surrendered three successive singles to load the bases for Maldonado, who promptly struck out on a four-seam fastball to mute that threat. Montgomery then executed a timely pivot back to his dominating form, retiring the Astros in order on just 18 pitches in the fifth and sixth innings.
Jose Leclerc retired the Astros in order in the ninth for his second save as Texas claimed its sixth consecutive postseason win.
–MK Bower, Field Level Media
