ALDS Game 1: Astros make a statement in 7-2 win over Indians

The Houston Astros officially started their title defense Friday — and it looked mighty familiar.

A strong outing from their ace Justin Verlander. Big homers from throughout Houston’s deep lineup. And another October win.

The Astros started the American League Division Series against the Cleveland Indians with a 7-2 win, powered by homers from Alex Bregman, George Springer, Jose Altuve and Martín Maldonado. They’ll take a 1-0 series lead into Game 2 in Houston, but more importantly, they made a statement: The Astros of 2017 haven’t gone anywhere.

This series figures to be one of the best of the opening round of the postseason, with a litany of great starting pitchers and plenty of home-run hitters. The main crux of the series is which team can execute closest to its potential, and Friday that was certainly the Astros.

Verlander outpitched Corey Kluber, a formidable foe from the Indians and Houston’s four homers was reminiscent of last year’s postseason, when they were attacking opponents from all angles.

The Indians threatened in the sixth, getting two runs on the board, but the Astros countered with another homer and an eighth-inning RBI single from Josh Reddick (his second RBI of the day), while their bullpen finished the day with three scoreless innings.

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George Springer and Jose Altuve reminded us just how dangerous the Astros offense can be — especially at home. They knocked back-to-back homers off Kluber in the fifth inning, which made the score 4-0 at the time and eventually chased Kluber from the game.

For Springer, this continues a homer streak that dates back to last year’s World Series. He’s now homered in five straight postseason games. He’s the third player in MLB history to accomplish such a feat, joining Carlos Beltran (who did in 2004) and Daniel Murphy (2015). Murphy’s streak was six games, so Springer has a chance to tie that in Game 2.

What made the difference in Game 1

People salivated over this pitching matchup and it mostly lived up to the hype. Verlander and Kluber started out great, each keeping the other team hitless until the fourth inning. The difference? One of them kept it going just a little bit longer.

The fourth inning is when Bregman homered for the Astros, getting the game’s first hit and putting Houston on the board. The Astros broke it open in the fifth, knocked Kluber out of the game with back-to-back homers. The Indians ace ended up giving up more homers (three) than he had strikeouts (two).

Meanwhile, Verlander took his no-hitter into the sixth. The Indians added two runs in the sixth inning to chase Verlander from the game, but his performance was still enough to set up Houston for Game 1 victory. Verlander finished with seven strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings, allowing two runs on two hits.

What’s next for Indians and Astros

One strong pitching matchup begets another, which is the beauty of this series. Game 2 on Saturday will bring us Carlos Carrasco (17-10, 3.38) vs. Gerrit Cole (15-5, 2.88), as we see if the Indians can tie up the series before heading back to Cleveland or if they’ll head home on the brink of elimination. First pitch is scheduled for 4:37 p.m. ET

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Mike Oz is a writer at Yahoo Sports. Contact him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz

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