Riley Adams clubbed a two-out, tie-breaking home run in the seventh inning, and the visiting Washington Nationals rode a strong pitching performance to a 2-1 victory over the reeling Houston Astros on Monday.
Adams socked his sixth homer this season to right field off Astros reliever Bryan King (3-2). His 348-foot shot set the table for relievers Luis Garcia and Jose Ferrer to preserve the win for reliever Konnor Pilkington (2-0). Kyle Finnegan recorded his 20th save with a perfect ninth.
The Astros suffered their sixth consecutive loss at home.
Two-out walks came back to bite both starting pitchers.
Astros left-hander Framber Valdez delivered another exceptional performance and remained unbeaten over his last 14 starts. He etched his name in the franchise record books as well.
Valdez struck out CJ Abrams and Josh Bell in the top of the first inning and stranded Paul DeJong at third base with a strikeout of Brady House to conclude the second. DeJong, who doubled with one out, was the first of three Nationals to record base hits against Valdez.
Adams joined that list with his leadoff single in the third, but Valdez responded with strikeouts of Alex Call and Bell to close the inning following a one-out walk to Abrams. With his strikeout of Call, Valdez became the 10th pitcher in franchise history to record 1,000 career strikeouts.
Starting with the Call strikeout, Valdez retired 10 consecutive batters. But with two outs in the sixth, Valdez walked Bell and Nathaniel Lowe followed with a double that rolled into the right-field corner and scored Bell from first base with the game-tying tally.
Valdez matched his season high of 12 strikeouts while allowing one run on three hits and two walks over six innings.
Nationals rookie right-hander Brad Lord carried a no-hit bid into the fifth inning and did not allow a baserunner until Yainer Diaz worked a two-out walk in that frame. Mauricio Dubon followed with a line-drive double to left that scored Diaz and gave the Astros a 1-0 lead. Houston snapped a streak of 18 consecutive games in which its opponent scored first.
Lord limited the damage to a solo run in the fifth and departed with one out in the sixth. He allowed one hit and one walk while recording a pair of strikeouts.
Riley Adams’ homer lifts Nationals past Astros
