Astros 5, Royals 4 (12): Astros rally back to avoid sweep

In Sunday’s series finale with the Royals, nothing appeared to be going in the favor of the Astros. While everything was coming up Royal early at Minute Maid Park. A 5-4 victory in the 12th inning did not appear to be in the cards for the Astros...but it happened.

The struggles came early for the Astros. Houston ran into three outs in the first two innings and Lance McCullers gave up home runs to Salvador Perez and Mike Moustakas. The Royals added another run courtesy of runners on the corners suicide squeeze bunt by Raul A. Mondesi, that scored Paulo Orlando by a hair.

Even after the Astros tied the game, all hope appeared lost when Chris Devenski gave a rare home run to Brandon Moss in the top of the ninth inning. But the tide turned as Jake Marsinick tied the game with his 19th career MLB home run.

Devenski remained in the game through the 12th inning. The Astros offense started the trek toward a win with an infield-single by George Springer. A sacrifice bunt by Alex Bregman pushed Springer to second and Jose Altuve was intentionally walked. Carlos Correa grounded into a force play and Brian McCann walked to load the bases.

The table was set for Evan Gattis with two outs and the bases loaded. Matt Strahm was on the mound for the Royals. Gattis worked the count to 3-1 and fouled off the pitch. Strahm threw the next pitch into the dirt, sending Springer home for the winning run on a walk.

Springer had already in this game hit his third leadoff home run of the season. It was the first of three home runs for the Astros on the day, Marwin Gonzalez hit his third home run of the season in the seventh inning.

Lance McCullers posted the Astros' sixth quality start in seven games, allowing three earned runs on six hits over seven innings. He struck out 10 and walked none.

Devenski pitched four innings allowing one earned run on three hits and struck out seven.