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Sports

Colon pitches past Astros for the sweep

By Sports Network
Published | Updated

Houston, TX – Bartolo Colon turned 40 on Friday, but on Sunday, he was pitching like he was 25.

Colon threw seven shutout innings and the Oakland Athletics swept the Houston Astros with a 6-2 win, in the finale of a three-game series at Minute Maid Park.

Colon (5-2) allowed nine hits and had nine strikeouts in his outing to help the Athletics win their 11th straight game over the AL-worst Astros.

"He knows how to make a pitch when he needs to," said Athleticss manager Bob Melvin. "I thought his stuff was as good today as we've seen all year."

Nate Freiman had a home run and three RBI while Seth Smith, Coco Crisp and Josh Donaldson each drove in one run.

J.D. Martinez and Chris Carter had an RBI apiece while Jason Castro went a perfect 4-for-4 for Houston. Starter Dallas Keuchel (1-2) give up six runs -- four earned -- on nine hits and a walk over six frames.

"I don't know, baseball is a funny game," said Keuchel. "Sometimes, somebody is going to kick your butt and you're going to kick their butt. But they (the Athletics) got our number right now and we got to do something about it."

The Athletics scored five runs in the fourth. Cespedes started the inning by reaching second on a throwing error by Jose Altuve and then scored on a single by Donaldson. Following a single by Jed Lowrie, Smith and Freiman connected on back-to-back doubles. Three batters later, Crisp delivered an RBI single.

Freiman homered with one out in the sixth to make it a 6-0 game.

Houston finally got on the board in the eighth. With one out and one on, J.D. Martinez ripped a double to left center, scoring Castro. Chris Corporan was walked and Carlos Pena singled to load the bases. Carter hit a sacrifice fly to left to score Martinez, but Matt Dominguez's grounder towards the shortstop ended the Astros' rally.

Sean Doolittle pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for Oakland to end the game.

Game Notes

Colon is the fourth pitcher in Oakland history to start a game at 40. The last to do so was Tom Candiotti, whose last start came in 1999 ... Chris Young was 0-for-5, snapping a 16-game hitting streak against Houston ... The Athletics were 4-for-10 with runners in scoring position.