Carlos Correa was blunt, disappointed and optimistic when he spoke to his Minnesota Twins teammates following their elimination from the playoffs. The Houston Astros — Minnesota's newest postseason nemesis — are going to the AL Championship Series for the seventh straight year, and they are the standard the Twins have to exceed in order to make more than a brief appearance in October. The Astros not only produced more clutch hits themselves — with 10 homers accounting for 16 of their 20 runs in the AL Division Series — but deftly pitched to exploit flaws and keep the Twins flailing and guessing for much of those four games.
José Abreu hit a three-run homer for Houston in a four-run first inning against Sonny Gray and piled on with a two-run shot in the ninth, powering the Astros past the Minnesota Twins 9-1 on Tuesday for a 2-1 lead in their AL Division Series. Yordan Alvarez hit his fourth home run in three games and Alex Bregman had a homer and an RBI single for the defending World Series champions, who took charge from their first at-bat and moved within one win of a seventh consecutive AL Championship Series appearance. Astros starter Cristian Javier took it from there with nine strikeouts in five scoreless innings.
Carlos Correa was back at Minute Maid Park, starring in the playoffs like he had so many times before. Correa had three hits and three RBIs and Pablo López pitched seven shutout innings, helping the Minnesota Twins beat the Houston Astros 6-2 on Sunday night in Game 2 of their AL Division Series. Kyle Farmer hit a two-run homer for the Twins, who bounced back nicely after losing 6-4 in the series opener on Saturday night.