HOUSTON – Houston starter Lance McCullers Jr. has not allowed a hit through six innings against the San Francisco Giants.The right-hander retired his first six batters before plunking Austin Slater on the leg to start the third inning.
He helped himself out with a nifty defensive play to end that inning when he ran to cover first base on a grounder hit by Mike Yastrzemski, made an off-balance catch and tagged Yastrzemski before falling to the dirt.
He got a lot of weak contact on his offspeed pitches and had six groundouts and struck out two over the next three innings before getting the third out of the sixth on a fly ball to center field by Yastrzemski.McCullers has thrown 73 pitches.