The Houston Astros silenced the home crowd early Tuesday in Minneapolis. A four-run first inning and a total of four home runs made it fairly smooth sailing for the visitors and a rough day for Twins starter Sonny Gray in a 9-1 victory. Now the Astros will look to clinch their ticket to a seventh straight ALCS with a win Wednesday in Game 4, while the Twins will try to stave off elimination and send this series to a Game 5.

Later, the Texas Rangers gave their home crowd plenty to cheer about, starting and finishing strong in a 7-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles that completed the ALDS sweep and sends Texas to the ALCS. It’s the Rangers’ first ALCS appearance since 2011 and the Orioles’ first time being swept since May 2022.

No. 5 Texas Rangers at No. 1 Baltimore Orioles, Game 3: Rangers 7, Orioles 1 (Texas wins 3-0)

Game summary:

The Orioles — the AL’s winningest team this season and champions of baseball’s toughest division — entered Game 3 with the hope of starting a comeback. It took about two innings for the Rangers to completely snuff that out.

The Rangers finished a three-game sweep of Baltimore with an early-innings offensive onslaught backed by yet another strong performance from the pitching staff. Corey Seager put Texas on the board with a solo homer in the first inning, and the real fun came with a five-run second inning punctuated by a no-doubter from Adolis García.

It was easy sailing for the Rangers from there until the top of the eighth inning, when the Orioles loaded the bases with two outs and forced Texas to bring in closer José Leclerc. Aaron Hicks, owner of half of Baltimore’s hits with runners in scoring position this series, worked the count full but then grounded out to first to effectively end the game.

Key moment:

Weirdly enough, the biggest at-bat for the Rangers in that second inning might’ve been an out. First baseman Nathaniel Lowe led off the inning against Orioles starter Dean Kremer and lined out to left field — but only after working a 15-pitch at-bat.

Kremer threw 53 pitches in his start, and more than a quarter of them came in that at-bat. Fatigue might’ve set in afterward, as Josh Jung singled on the next pitch. After a Leody Taveras pop-out, the next four Rangers reached base, scoring five runs and knocking Kremer out of the game.

Lowe did his own damage later, with a solo homer in the sixth inning shortly after Gunnar Henderson hit an RBI single to finally get Baltimore on the board.

Impact player:

The Rangers gave Nathan Eovaldi $34 million last offseason partially because of his success in the postseason, with a career 2.90 ERA entering Tuesday and a World Series title with the Boston Red Sox in 2018. He backed all that up on the mound in Game 3.

The veteran right-hander was dominant all night against Baltimore, going seven innings with one earned run, five hits and seven strikeouts. He didn’t allow an extra-base hit.

In a postseason in which so many contenders seem to be short on reliable starting pitching, the Rangers could enter the ALCS with a relatively formidable quartet of Eovaldi, Max Scherzer, Jordan Montgomery and Jon Gray. Scherzer and Gray were both out for this series but are reportedly on track to return for the next round.

What’s next?

Just like that, the Orioles’ 101-win season is over without a postseason victory, and the Rangers are on to the ALCS. They’ll have four days off before meeting the winner of Twins-Astros in Game 1 on Sunday.

No. 3 Minnesota Twins at No. 2 Houston Astros, Game 3: Astros 9, Twins 1 (Houston leads 2-1)

Game summary:

The Astros’ bats roared out of the gate in a four-run first inning, and starter Cristian Javier did the work from there, as Houston secured a 9-1 win over the Minnesota Twins in Game 3 of the ALDS. With the win, the Astros take 2-1 control of the best-of-five series and face a chance to close it out Wednesday in Game 4.

Kyle Tucker got the scoring started with an RBI single off Gray in the first. Then José Abreu blew the game open with a three-run home run to put the Twins in a hole before they even had a chance to bat.

They didn’t dig out of it. The Astros chased Gray after four earned runs in four innings, and the Twins squandered several scoring opportunities in a difficult day at the plate.

The Astros tacked on another run via an Alex Bregman solo homer in the fifth and another still via a Bregman RBI single in the sixth. They really put things out of reach with home runs from Abreu and Yordan Alvarez that scored three more in the ninth.

The Twins plated their only run of the day when a Willi Castro single drove in Carlos Correa in the sixth.

Key moment:

The Twins can look back at several missed opportunities Tuesday, but none was more frustrating than the fifth inning. After Javier issued walks to Castro, Edouard Julien and Jorge Planco, the Twins had the bases loaded with one out while trailing 5-0. They ended the inning without scoring a run.

Max Kepler struck out looking on a high-arcing knuckle curve for the second out, setting up wild-card hero Royce Lewis for a chance at more heroics. The breakout rookie third baseman set a Twins record with four grand slams in the regular season, then hit two home runs in his first two postseason plate appearances in Minnesota’s Game 1 wild-card win over the Toronto Blue Jays.

Even so, Javier got the best of him in this one. The Astros’ starter struck Lewis out on four pitches, including a swinging strike three on a slider well off the plate.

The Twins had stranded seven runners through five innings at that point. They ended the game stranding nine.

Impact player:

There are plenty of deserving candidates on a day that saw Abreu, Bregman and Alvarez each hit at least one home run as the Astros plated nine runs. But Javier earns the honors for a gutsy performance on the mound that saw him strike out nine through five shutout innings.

Javier struggled with his control a bit, walking five and hitting another batter. But he repeatedly worked his way out of jams. The Twins had two men on with one out in the first inning, then two on with no outs in the third and came away without a run both times. And that was before the bases-loaded dramatics in the fifth.

What’s next?

Game 4 begins at 2:07 p.m. ET Wednesday in Minnesota. The Twins will give the ball to Joe Ryan trying to extend the series to a Game 5, while the Astros, whose starter has not yet been announced, will be looking to clinch a spot in the ALCS.