Astros roll to early lead, hold on to beat Twins in Game 1 of the ALDS 6-4

HOUSTON — One more streak to snap. One more decades-old, ambition-killing rut to escape.

On Tuesday, the Twins broke their 18-game postseason losing streak. On Wednesday, they ended their six-series playoff drought. But on Saturday, they were reminded that they're not likely to advance much further until they stop indulging in another debilitating habit: scoring only a few runs.

For the 18th consecutive postseason game, a stretch dating back to their first playoff game of 2006, the Twins failed to score more than four runs. Unlike last week, this time it cost them, as the Astros captured Game 1 of the AL Division Series 6-4 at Minute Maid Park.

Game 2 is Sunday night at 7:03 p.m.

"We had a lot of traffic out there. We're one good swing away from getting some real action going, putting some runs up," said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, whose team went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position. "We just didn't get that. But we stayed in the game and still had an opportunity to win, all the way to the end."

The Astros' chances, though, began with the very first pitch. Jose Altuve lined Bailey Ober's first career postseason pitch over the Crawford Boxes in left field, Yordan Alvarez blasted a pair of homers into the right-field seats off two different pitchers, and José Abreu and Chas McCormick lined run-scoring singles against Kenta Maeda.

But Justin Verlander, the Twins' regular-season nemesis since right around the time their postseason problems began, made the biggest contribution to the Astros' first step toward defending their 2022 World Series championship. The three-time Cy Young Award winner, hardly sharp but unquestionably competitive, shut out the Twins for six innings, giving his teammates time to build what was, and has been for 17 years, too big a lead to overcome.

"His breaking ball, he couldn't get over. He got in trouble a couple of times early on," but escaped each time, thanks to a couple of rally-killing double plays, noted Astros manager Dusty Baker. "But if you don't get J.V. early, he usually finds his groove."

He did, retiring 12 of the last 14 hitters he faced, six of them by strikeout.

"He's still a really, really good pitcher," Twins catcher Ryan Jeffes said. "He made some big pitches when he needed to."

Most importantly, he extended another frustrating Twins streak: He hasn't allowed them to hit a home run in 23 consecutive innings, regular and postseason, a drought that extends so far back, Ehire Adrianza was the last Twin to connect. One big swing, by a team that led the AL in home runs, "and that would have been a totally different ballgame," said Royce Lewis, who homered after Verlander was lifted.

"Getting mis-hits is a skill, I think. Missing barrels is a skill," the future Hall of Famer said. "When there are runners on base, I try to stay away from home runs. I would say some of that is a little bit of luck, but some of it is intentional as well."

Baker chose to remove the 40-year-old righthander after six innings and 93 pitches — TV cameras caught Verlander asking pitching coach Josh Miller "You sure?" after receiving the news — and the Twins were quick to take advantage. With two outs and two runners on base in the seventh, Jorge Polanco crushed a belt-high fastball 399 feet into the right-field seats, a three-run blast off reliever Hector Neris that quieted the rowdy 43,024 in attendance.

"From the on-deck circle, that was a majestic homer," Lewis said. "It went way back. That was awesome."

Two pitches later, Lewis outdid him, hammering another Neris fastball 409 feet, just inside the left-field foul pole, his third home run in three postseason games.

Those homers not only produced the Twins' biggest postseason inning in 21 years, since a seven-run outburst in Game 4 of the 2002 Division Series against Oakland, but they gave the Twins confidence that they can compete with the defending champs.

"We put ourselves in a little bit of a hole, but I love the fight that we had to come back late in the game. We never give up," Lewis said. "You've got to play the full nine innings with us. That's what makes me most proud about this team."

They trailed 5-4 after Lewis' blast, and when Bryan Abreu relieved Neris, Max Kepler greeted him with an opposite-field double. But Alex Kirilloff whiffed on a 3-and-2 slider to end the threat, and Alvarez's second home run of the day, a golf shot off of a low-and-away sweeper from Caleb Thielbar in the bottom of the inning, seemed to snuff the Twins' momentum for good.

"He's a great hitter. You've just got to throw your best pitch and hope it goes your way. The breaking ball Caleb threw was a good pitch [but] sometimes it's going to get hit. He throws that pitch tomorrow, Alvarez could roll it over to first base and nobody talks about it," reliever Emilio Pagán empathized. "That's the beauty of the game. Sometimes you're on the winning side, and sometimes you're not."

You'd be on the winning side more often if you score more than four runs, though — and the Twins just couldn't. Carlos Correa led off the eighth inning with a double into the left-field corner, advanced to third base on an Abreu wild pitch, and still couldn't score a streak-busting fifth run. He watched Matt Wallner and Ryan Jeffers strike out, and Willi Castro end the inning with a routine ground ball to Altuve.

Still, the Twins were unanimously upbeat afterwards.

"I'm not going to say we took their best punch. They're obviously a great team," Pagán said. "We're going to get a few more good punches out of them, that's just who they are. But we're no slouch by any means. We're excited for tomorrow."