Los Angeles Angels vs Houston Astros Match Player Stats On May 12, 2021

Brandon Bielak pitched 3 1/3 effective innings after being summoned unexpectedly from the bullpen as the Houston Astros won the rubber match of their three-game set against the visiting Los Angeles Angels 9-1 Wednesday.

Jose Altuve, Yuli Gurriel and Kyle Tucker homered off Angels left-hander Andrew Heaney (1-3), who recorded 10 strikeouts against the Astros on April 23. Heaney endured a laborious 32-pitch first inning Wednesday but appeared to find his groove before Tucker applied the knockout blow in the sixth.

Gurriel capped the Astros' three-run first inning by driving in Yordan Alvarez with his seventh homer, an opposite-field shot to right. Altuve provided Houston a 1-0 lead by ricocheting the first pitch in the bottom of the first off the left field foul pole for his fourth homer.

Tucker crushed a first-pitch Heaney curveball 416 feet into the upper deck in right for his club-leading eighth home run and a 5-0 edge. Houston has five players with five-plus homers, a list that includes Alvarez, who socked his seventh home run leading off the eighth, Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa (five apiece).

Tucker is 7-for-13 with three home runs and seven RBIs over his past four games.

In the sixth, when Tucker followed a one-out Correa single with his blast, Heaney departed having allowed five runs on nine hits with five strikeouts and no walks over 5 1/3 innings. He threw 96 pitches.

Astros right-hander Jose Urquidy breezed through his first three innings, sidestepping a Jose Iglesias one-out single in the first inning and Jose Rojas' leadoff double in the second with nary a concern. He retired eight consecutive batters after Rojas reached but departed with right shoulder discomfort after inducing a lazy fly ball to right from Taylor Ward in the fourth.

Bielak (2-2) entered and immediately retired 10 of 11 batters before issuing a leadoff walk to Phil Gosselin and a single to Jon Jay in the eighth. Gosselin scored via a Drew Butera sacrifice fly, but Astros right-hander Andre Scrubb limited the damage to one run in relief of Bielak.

--Field Level Media