Astros clinch postseason berth with 11-3 win over Angels

No surprise here: The Astros are headed back to the postseason to defend their title following a landslide 11-3 win over the Angels on Friday. This figures to be their third playoff run since 2015, though they have yet to wrap up the AL West with a division title.

First baseman Yuli Gurriel led the charge on Friday, smashing a grand slam in the first inning and tacking on a two-run homer in the second and RBI single in the fifth to help the Astros to a seven-run lead. The Angels eventually returned fire, first with Mike Trout‘s 418-foot homer in the sixth, then with an RBI hit from Francisco Arcia in the seventh, but they couldn’t close the gap in time to overtake the Astros.

On the mound, right-hander Gerrit Cole clinched his 15th win of the year after holding the Angels to seven innings of three-run, 12-strikeout ball. His sixth strikeout of the night — delivered on an 83.1-MPH knuckle curveball to Kaleb Cowart — also marked the 1,000th strikeout of his career to date. He was backed by flawless performances by lefty reliever Tony Sipp and rookie right-hander Dean Deetz, both of whom turned in scoreless innings as the offense barreled toward an 11-3 finish with Jake Marisnick‘s sac bunt and George Springer‘s three-run shot in the eighth.

Despite having qualified for the playoffs, the Astros still carry a magic number of 6 as they look to clinch a third straight division title. They’re currently up against the Athletics, who entered Friday’s contest against the Twins just four games back of first place in the AL West.

There’s a long list of brothers who’ve had overlapping careers in the major leagues, from Hank and Tommie Aaron to Felipe, Matty, and Jesus Alou to B.J. and Justin Upton. In fact, Baseball-Almanac lists over 350 groupings of related players, of which the Astros’ Yuli Gurriel and Blue Jays’ Lourdes Gurriel Jr. are only one of the most recent. Although the brothers have yet to play on the same MLB roster, they still found a way to make history together after recording separate multi-homer performances for their respective teams on Friday — a first for any set of brothers in major league history.

Both brothers kicked off their performances with moonshots in the first inning. Lourdes pounced on a 99.1-MPH fastball from the Rays’ Diego Castillo and parked it 450 feet away in the center field seats of Rogers Centre, while Yuli muscled a 368-footer out to right field in Minute Maid Park for a grand slam, his second of the year.

In the fourth inning, with the Blue Jays hanging onto a one-run lead, Lourdes returned with another solo shot, this one a 415-foot drive off of rookie lefty Jalen Beeks. He tacked on another base hit in the sixth and finished his night 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI.

Yuli, meanwhile, saved his final home run for the third inning. Backed by a 4-0 lead over the Angels, the result of his first-inning heroics, he crushed a curveball from lefty reliever Andrew Heaney and drove in Marwin Gonzalez to boost the Astros’ advantage to six runs. Like his brother, he also added another base hit to his total for the night and finished 3-for-4 with seven RBI. Of course, there was one perk Yuli got that his younger brother didn’t — bragging rights after the Astros clinched a playoff spot with their 11-3 win over the Angels.