May 30, 2015
Astros 3, White Sox 0
W – Keuchel (7-1)
L – Quintana (2-6)
After A.J. Hinch more or less emptied the bullpen on Friday night, he really needed to count on Dallas Keuchel to eat some innings on Saturday. He did that in spades, throwing his second complete game in as many starts and threw arguably his best start of the season, if not his career. Cychel scattered four hits, walked none, and punched out 11 Chisox (a career high) as the Astros won 3-0.
There wasn’t really any point in the game that Keuchel didn’t look dominant; all four hits were only singles and were usually followed by strikeouts. The closest the White Sox came to mounting a rally was when they got a runner to third with only one out in the 3rd, but Keuchel sat down the next two batters with Ks. Two of the other four Sox baserunners were erased on double plays.
Jonathan Villarreal provided the only needed run in the 4th inning on a sac fly, but the Astros tacked on some insurance runs in the 8th with back-to-back bombs by Evan Gattis and Chris Carter. Gattis had two hits on the day and is putting a pretty nice bow on a good ending to the month of May. Carter is the owner of a seven-game(!) hitting streak.
Sunday’s rubber game features Roberto Hernandez (2-3, 4.77) against John Danks (2-4, 5.69) at 1:10pm CDT.