Astros 3, Orioles 1: McCullers Tosses Complete Game In Fourth ML Start

What Happened

Holy Domination, Batman!  Lance McCullers threw what was obviously the best game of his very young MLB career tonight.  He allowed only four hits and one run in throwing the first complete game of his career, and the first this season by an Astros pitcher not named Keuchel.  He struck out 11 batters including slugger Chris Davis (who represented the tying run) to end the game.  He pitched like a 4-year veteran instead of a 4-game veteran.  He had all of his pitches working, and out of his 107 pitches he threw 73 for strikes.  The only hiccup he had all game was the fourth inning when he gave up a triple to Adam Jones, followed by a single by Delmon Young to provide the O's with their only run of the game.  The best moment of the night was in the ninth inning.  With two down McCullers gave up a single to Jones.  Manager A.J. Hinch came out to the mound, and McCullers told him he could get the next guy (Davis).  Hinch left him in to complete the game, showing a lot of confidence in his rookie.

Power was the key to the Astros offense tonight.  They only had four hits but they made them count.  In the second inning Chris Carter hit his 9th homer of the season onto the tracks above the Crawford Boxes.  After the O's tied it up Carter came up in the fifth inning and hit his 10th of the year up on the tracks (and almost hit the train) in deep left center field.  George Springer in the sixth inning added an insurance run with a line drive home run to left.  That was all McCullers needed tonight.  The bullpen got a well deserved night off.

Tomorrow the Astros go for their third 4-game sweep of the season as Dallas Keuchel goes against Wei-Yin Chen in a businessfan's special at 1 pm.  Who knows, maybe the bullpen gets another day of rest?

Fun Facts

The last Astros rookie pitcher to get 10 or more strikeouts was Collin McHugh on April 22 of last season when he struck out 12 against Seattle in his Astros debut.

Astros are now at the 1/3 point of the season and have 34 wins.  Not bad...

Cater's second homer was estimated at 454 feet, the longest of his career (ESPN Stats & Info)

Statcast estimated the speed of the SpringerDinger off the bat was 108 MPH

Tweets of the Night

Now it's a party...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dwight Howard was in Club Astros tonight.</p>&mdash; Julia Morales (@JuliaMoralesRS) <a href="https://twitter.com/JuliaMoralesRS/status/606291760013148160">June 4, 2015</a></blockquote>

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I bet you a dollar he wore the hat while he was there.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dwight Howard had his popcorn ready, loving tonight&#39;s <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Astros?src=hash">#Astros</a> game <a href="http://t.co/ZcWOtUwCb0">pic.twitter.com/ZcWOtUwCb0</a></p>&mdash; Daniel Gotera (@DTGoteraKHOU) <a href="https://twitter.com/DTGoteraKHOU/status/606285114599862273">June 4, 2015</a></blockquote>

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