two-run homer

Christian Walker homered twice and the Houston Astros beat the Angels 6-1 on Saturday night, a couple of hours after getting eliminated from playoff contention.

Zach Cole and Jesús Sánchez also went deep for the Astros, who will miss the postseason for the first time since 2016.

Walker was batting in the second inning when Cleveland scored in the bottom of the ninth at Progressive Field for a 3-2 victory over Texas that clinched the final American League playoff spot for the Guardians and eliminated the Astros.

That snapped Houston’s streak of eight consecutive playoff appearances, a run that featured seven straight trips to the AL Championship Series from 2017-2023 and World Series titles in 2017 and 2022.

With Saturday night’s game rendered moot, Astros manager Joe Espada pulled his top three batters — Jose Altuve, Isaac Paredes and Carlos Correa — after two innings.

Cole followed Yainer Diaz’s second-inning single with a two-run homer off Angels starter Caden Dana (0-4). Walker led off the fourth with a homer for a 3-0 lead. Cole walked and Sanchez lined a two-run homer to right field for a 5-0 lead. Walker’s solo shot — his 27th of the season — made it 6-1 in the ninth.

Houston starter AJ Blubaugh gave up one hit in four scoreless innings against the Angels (72-89), and reliever J.P. France (1-0) allowed one run and two hits in three innings, striking out five and walking one.

Dana, the Angels’ rookie right-hander, permitted five runs and five hits in seven innings.

Key moment: France gave up an RBI double to Jo Adell and walked Logan O’Hoppe to put two on with one out in the sixth, but the right-hander struck out Christian Moore and Oswald Peraza to preserve a 5-1 lead.

Key stat: Sunday’s season finale will be only the fourth game since the start of the 2015 season that the Astros (86-75) will play while out of postseason contention. The other three came at the end of 2016, when Houston was eliminated from the wild-card race on Sept. 29.

Up next: Astros RHP Lance McCullers Jr. (2-5, 6.71 ERA) will start Sunday against Angels LHP Sam Aldegheri (0-1, 8.00).

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Mitch Farris pitched five effective innings to win his major league debut and Jo Adell hit a two-run homer that helped the Angels defeat the Kansas City Royals 5-1 on Tuesday night.

Adell finished with three hits and Oswald Peraza had an RBI double for the Angels, who scratched star slugger Mike Trout less than an hour before the game because of a skin infection.

Trout is considered day-to-day.

Kansas City remained 2 1/2 games behind Seattle for the last American League wild card.

Farris (1-0) walked his first batter but soon settled in. He gave up one run and three hits with two walks and three strikeouts.

Royals starter Michael Lorenzen (5-9) permitted two runs and four hits in six innings. He walked one and struck out five.

Bobby Witt Jr. tripled for Kansas City in the third and scored on Vinnie Pasquantino’s sacrifice fly.

The Angels took a 2-1 lead on Adell’s two-run homer off Lorenzen in the sixth. Peraza doubled home a run in the seventh and scored on a wild pitch.

Key moment

Lorenzen took a two-hit shutout into the sixth. But after a one-out single, Adell launched a 454-foot homer to left field.

Key stat

Farris was the fourth Angels pitcher to make his MLB debut as a starter in Kansas City, following Frank Tanana (1973), Jarrod Washburn (1998) and Seth Etherton (2000).

Up next

The Royals will send right-hander Ryan Bergert (2-1, 2.67 ERA) to the mound Wednesday night. The Angels have not announced a scheduled starter.

Jo Adell hit a two-run homer, Yusei Kikuchi surrendered four hits in six innings and the Angels beat the Tampa Bay Rays 5-1 on Monday night.

The Rays (55-59) struck in the opening inning when Yandy Díaz doubled to right and scored on Junior Caminero’s sacrifice fly to center field. Kikuchi (5-7) escaped without further damage and finished with seven strikeouts and two walks.

Angels pitchers combined for 12 strikeouts.

Yoán Moncada reached on a fielder’s choice for the Angels in the second inning before Adell launched a 428-foot homer to left-center off Adrian Houser (6-3), putting the Angels (55-58) ahead 2-1.

The Angels made it 4-1 in the third inning on Taylor Ward‘s two-run single. Bryce Teodosio doubled in the sixth and Zach Neto drove him in with a double of his own that put the Angels up 5-1.

Ward and Teodosio both had three hits.

Houser worked 5⅔ innings, yielding 11 hits and five runs while striking out three.

Christopher Morel finished 0 for 4 with four strikeouts for the Rays.

Key moment: Nolan Schanuel was hit by a pitch, and Mike Trout doubled to left field to open the third inning. Ward followed with a single to center that drove both runners in and gave the Angels a three-run lead.

Key stat: Ward and Teodosio both had three hits.

Up next: The Rays and Angels face off again Tuesday night. RHP Ryan Pepiot (6-9, 3.80 ERA) is expected to start for Tampa Bay against RHP José Soriano (7-8, 3.65 ERA) for Angels.

Nathan Eovaldi limited the Angels to a run in seven innings, Adolis García hit a two-run homer in the eighth and the Texas Rangers beat the Angels 6-3 on Wednesday night.

Eovaldi (9-3) helped the Rangers avoid a series sweep and snap the Angels’ three-game winning streak. He allowed six hits and struck out four.

Marcus Semien was three for five with an RBI and two runs. He doubled and opened the scoring on Wyatt Langford’s single in the fourth, and had an RBI single in the sixth. Langford was two for five with a double.

Robert Garcia pitched the ninth for his ninth save.

José Soriano (7-8) pitched seven innings for the Angels, giving up two runs, one of which was unearned, while striking out seven.

Luis Rengifo tied it, 1-1, with an RBI single in the fourth.

García broke hit open in the eighth with his 15th home run of the season, and Texas tacked on two more runs to pull away.

Nolan Schanuel hit a two-run homer for the Angels in the eighth. Corey Seager extended his majors-best on-base streak to 29 games in the ninth with a single to right.

Key moment

García’s eighth-inning homer gave Texas breathing room.

Key stat

Eovaldi allowed just one run.

Up next

Angels left-hander Tyler Anderson (2-6, 4.41) is scheduled to start at home Friday night against the Chicago White Sox.

Dave Roberts had some goals in mind for starting pitcher Dustin May on Thursday. And they had little to do with the final result.

“The first thing is his ability to go deeper in games,” the Dodger manager said. “The sweeper has got to be a more effective pitch. His sinker has got to be more effective.

“I know he’s working through some delivery things with the pitching coaches. I’m kind waiting to see what to expect tonight.”

May would give Roberts far more than he asked for, setting down the first 16 batters in order and pitching into the eighth inning for the first time in his career in a 6-2 win over the Chicago White Sox.

The win was the Dodgers’ fourth in a row and ninth in their last 10 games.

The start was May’s 16th of the season and the seven innings he threw gave him 89.2 for the year, both career highs. Consistency, however, has been an issue. He won just once in June, when his 5.67 ERA was highest among Dodger starters.

His first start in July was a different story, with May (5-5) giving up just two hits and striking out nine — one shy of his career high — in seven shutout innings before tiring in the eighth.

The Dodgers needed just three batters to give the right-hander the lead with Shohei Ohtani drawing a lead-off walk, then scoring on Freddie Freeman’s one-out double into the right-field corner.

Freeman padded that lead in the third, going the other way and looping a two-run double into the left-field corner. It was Freeman’s first three-RBI game in nearly two months. When Michael Conforto followed two batters later with a two-run homer, it was 5-0 Dodgers.

And the lead could have been larger: Freeman lost a homer of his own in his next at-bat when Chicago right fielder Michael Tauchman reached a couple of rows into the right-field bleachers near the foul pole to bring his fifth-inning drive back.

Mookie Betts closed the Dodgers’ scoring with a one-out solo homer in the seventh, just his second since May 19.

May, meanwhile, was cruising, talking a perfect game into the sixth before Brooks Baldwin singled sharply to right. He took a shutout into the eighth before Baldwin ended that, too, with a two-run homer.

May got help from a couple of sterling defensive plays, with Conforto taking a hit away from Miguel Vargas with a sliding catch in left to the start the fifth and Freeman diving to his right to stab Josh Rojas’ low line drive to start the sixth.

Relievers Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates followed May to the mound, throwing a hitless inning apiece to close out the win.