Rangers ride strong start to victory over Astros for 7th straight post-season win

No matter the place or the moment, the Texas Rangers are rolling right now.

Jonah Heim homered, Nathan Eovaldi pitched six effective innings and Texas beat Framber Valdez and the Houston Astros 5-4 on Monday for a 2-0 lead in the AL Championship Series.

The Rangers improved to 7-0 in the playoffs, including six wins on the road. They swept the Rays in the Wild Card Series and the Orioles in the Division Series, and then posted a 2-0 win at Houston in the ALCS opener.

Adolis Garcia, Mitch Garver and Nathaniel Lowe each hit an RBI single during Texas' four-run first inning against Valdez, and Jose Leclerc closed it out for the Rangers after Yordan Alvarez powered an Astros rally.

Eovaldi struck out nine, including two in a row after Houston loaded the bases with none out in the fifth. He was charged with three runs and five hits in his third win this postseason.

"You're talking about one of the elite pitchers in the game," Texas manager Bruce Bochy said. "They have that ability to turn up a notch when they had to. We made an error, bases loaded, and it's about picking each other up, and he picked us up there and made great pitches."

Game 3 of the best-of-seven series is Wednesday night in Arlington, Tex.

The Rangers are the fifth team in MLB history and first since the Astros last season to win their first seven postseason games. Kansas City holds the record with an eight-game win streak to start the 2014 postseason.

The six straight road playoff wins by the Rangers is tied for the second-longest such streak in MLB history, behind an eight-game streak by the Yankees in 1996.

Alvarez hit two solo drives to become the sixth player in MLB history to have two multi-homer games in one postseason. The second one was off Aroldis Chapman, trimming Houston's deficit to 5-4 with two out in the eighth.

Leclerc then came in and walked Jose Abreu and Michael Brantley, but Chas McCormick grounded out to end the threat.

The Astros, who went 39-42 at home in the regular season, continued to struggle at Minute Maid Park. The defending champions fell to 1-3 at home in the playoffs this year.

The Rangers jumped all over Valdez. Marcus Semien smacked the first pitch to center field for a single. Corey Seager singled to left on the second pitch before Valdez made two errors on one play.

Valdez bobbled a chopper hit by Robbie Grossman for an error that allowed him to reach first and Semien to score. His second error occurred when he badly overthrew first to move Grossman to second and Seager to third.

Valdez put his hands on his knees and shook his head at the end of the play.

Garcia then hit a liner to right field to score Seager. Garver singled home another run before Valdez finally got his first out when he struck out Heim.

The Rangers weren't done yet.

Lowe singled on a ground ball to left to make it 4-0. Valdez retired the next two batters to end the inning.

"I thought my pitches were good," he said through a translator. "Maybe they got a little bit lucky. There were a couple of balls that weren't hit that well for base hits."

Phillies fly past D-Backs

Bryce Harper smashed the first pitch he saw on his 31st birthday into the seats, Kyle Schwarber hit his first homer of the postseason and Nick Castellanos also went deep again to power the Philadelphia Phillies past the Arizona Diamondbacks 5-3 in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series on Monday night.

Harper held up three fingers on his left hand and one on his right and pretended to blow them out like candles on a cake as he crossed the plate. Harper, who also walked, scored twice and knocked in two runs, hit his 10th homer in two post-seasons with the Phillies.

Zack Wheeler struck out eight in six innings to help the defending National League champions win their seventh Game 1 of the last two post-seasons. Wheeler sawed two bats in half during the first two innings, leaving the Diamondbacks with more pieces of busted lumber than hits through five.

Jose Alvarado got four big outs on 15 pitches and Craig Kimbrel worked a scoreless ninth for the save.

Arizona was stuck with its first loss of the postseason after ripping off five straight wins against the Brewers and Dodgers.

The Diamondbacks were simply the latest team to unravel under the red storm of 45,396 towel-waving, deliriously-cheering fans at Citizens Bank Park. The Phillies never gave fans a reason to stop — or a chance for Arizona to catch its breath until it was too late.

Four pitches later, Harper homered — the first time in 127 post-season games Philadelphia went deep twice in the first inning.

When Castellanos lined his fifth homer of the playoffs in the third — all in the past three games — it gave the Phillies 32 home runs in 13 postseason games at Citizens Bank Park over the last two years.

The Kelce Bros approved. Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — minus celebrity friend Taylor Swift — and Eagles centre Jason Kelce went wild. Travis pointed to his brother as Jason pounded a beer in their suite.

Gallen, a South Jersey native, had his name derisively drawn out to "Galll-ennnn" by Phillies fans each time the 17-game winner got into a jam. Too many times, for Arizona.

Trea Turner hit a one-double in the third, leaving first base open. Gallen pitched to Harper instead of walking him and got burned by an RBI single for a 4-0 lead.

J.T. Realmuto added an RBI single in the fifth.

Those runs proved crucial for the Phillies. Geraldo Perdomo hit a two-run homer off Wheeler in the fifth that made it 5-2.

Seranthony Dominguez opened the door in the seventh for the Diamondbacks when his throwing error on a comebacker led to an unearned run. Alvarado retired pinch-hitter Emmanuel Rivera on a groundout to keep it 5-3 and tossed a scoreless eighth.