SEATTLE - Five days after dropping his second game of the season, Ronel Blanco returned to the mound to throw six strong innings against the San Francisco Giants.
Blanco had another strong outing, allowing just three hits and one home run to snap the Astros' two-game losing streak.
The Dominican matched his season-high of eight strikeouts, numbers he also got against the Rockies on April 27.
Out of his 12 starts this season, he has allowed one or less runs in five. However, Blanco had been struggling a little in his previous two starts, allowing eight runs and combined for only eight strikeouts in a little 10 1/3 innings.
With the road win, the Dominican made history with the Houston Astros by becoming the first pitcher in franchise history to go undefeated in his first nine career road starts, taking his record to 6-0 this season.
Blanco relied mostly on his four-seam fastball, throwing it in 53% of his pitches. He got 17 swing-and-misses out of his 96 pitches and lowered his ERA to 2.67 through 12 starts this season.
Blanco leads all Astros pitchers in wins (6), innings pitched (70.2) and strikeouts (67) this season.
After the win, Giants manager Bob Melvin had nothing but praise for the Dominican who now sits with a record of 6-2 this season. "He's got good stuff," Melvin said. "He throws hard. He throws an assortment of breaking balls. Just enough fastballs to keep you off the breaking stuff...He ends up throwing six innings, only one walk, eight strikeouts. It was just tough to square him up," Melvin added.
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