 gave up his only hit in the sixth inning while the Astros broke out offensively to win a meeting of division leaders and snap the Twins' four-game winning streak.After losing 1-0 in the series opener, Houston added to its franchise record for April homers on Tuesday. George Springer, Jake Marisnick and Alex Bregman went deep, giving the Astros 43 for the month.Cole struck out 11 and walked three, including the first two batters of the game. It was his fourth game with double-figure strikeouts this season. Max Kepler had the only hit off Cole, a double off the right-field wall with one out in the sixth.Relievers Josh James and Chris Devenski completed the three-hitter. Kepler had two hits for the Twins, who have hit 50 home runs in their first 27 games.Springer had an RBI double in the third and homered on the first pitch of the fifth.Marisnick and Bregman homered as part of a four-run sixth. Marisnick hit a two-run shot to chase Michael Pineda (2-2), who allowed five runs on a season-high nine hits in five-plus innings.TRAINER'S ROOMTwins: Pineda was hit in the leg by a line drive off the bat of Michael Brantley in the fifth inning but stayed in the game. ... INF Miguel Sano (right heel laceration) went 0-for-1 with a walk Tuesday in his rehab assignment for Single-A Fort Myers.PROSPECT SUSPENDEDAstros minor leaguer J. J. Matijevic was suspended 50 games Tuesday after a second positive test for a drug of abuse. Matijevic, a 2017 second-round pick, is batting .240 for Double-A Corpus Christi.UP NEXTLHP Martin Perez (3-0, 4.44 ERA) will start for the Twins against RHP Collin McHugh (3-2, 4.78) in the third game of the four-game series. The teams will conclude their season series on Thursday. All seven games are in a span of 11 days.---More MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB and https://twitter.com/-Sports)
Astros' Cole confident ahead of start at Minnesota After going 15-5 with a 2.88 ERA last season, Houston Astros right-hander Gerrit Cole was considered one of the preseason favorites to win this year's American League Cy Young Award.However, Cole owns a 1-4 record and a 4.71 ERA heading into his first career appearance against the surging Minnesota Twins on Tuesday in Minneapolis. Still, he believes it's just a matter of time before he turns things around."I'm feeling strong, and my stuff is looking really good, and so I just keep trying to give us a good chance to win like I've always done," Cole told MLB.com. "We'll get on one of those rolls here again real soon." Cole bounced back from the worst outing of his career, a 9-4 loss to the Texas Rangers on April 20 that saw him surrender nine runs (eight earned) in 4 1/3 innings, to allow just three hits and two runs over seven innings in a 2-1 home loss to the Indians on Thursday night.Cole fanned 10 Cleveland batters to give him 54 strikeouts in 36 1/3 innings. He also touched 99.1 mph on the radar gun with a fastball to strike out Carlos Gonzalez in the first inning.The bad news for Cole, who thought he may have been tipping his pitches in the previous blowout loss to the Rangers, is two of the hits he allowed to Cleveland were solo homers. Leonys Martin's round-tripper traveled just 340 feet to right while Jake Bauers hit a 343-footer into the front row of the Crawford Boxes in left."I kind of felt unlucky," Cole said. "They got the ball up in the air, so it's kind of the way it bounced for us."I've been pretty critical of my performance with myself, but I've given my team a chance to win outside of the (Texas) start -- a pretty good chance every time. I'm just trying to not overcorrect and just make little tweaks. With that said, sometimes you've just got to pitch better in these games because the other guy is not going to give up very many runs. You end up on the short end of the stick there." There is no better example of that than Minnesota's 1-0 victory over Houston on Monday night in the series opener.Justin Verlander took the loss despite give up just two hits over six innings. One of those hits was a home run by Ehire Adrianza in the third inning that turned out to be the game-winner.The Twins, who hit 12 homers in a three-game series sweep of Baltimore over the weekend, are 8-2 in their last 10 games and have won four in a row.Minnesota right-hander Michael Pineda (2-1, 5.63), who is 3-3 with a 4.66 ERA in eight career starts against the Astros, will oppose Cole.Pineda will have a tough act to follow after Jake Odorizzi, Taylor Rogers and Blake Parker combined to hold Houston to just five singles Monday.The Astros outscored the Twins 22-14 in taking two out of three games last week in Houston."That's an incredibly tough team, and that's a tough lineup to navigate through," Twins catcher Mitch Garver said. "All the credit goes to our staff. (Odorizzi) pitched a great game. ... They've got a great team over there, but we've got a dang good one, too." --Field Level Media
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