Hunter Brown helps Astros avoid sweep by Twins

Rookie Hunter Brown allowed two hits and one unearned run over seven innings and Chas McCormick homered and drove in four runs to lead the Houston Astros to a 5-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis.

Mauricio Dubon had a double and also scored twice, Jeremy Pena went 2-for-4 with an RBI double and run scored and Yanier Diaz also doubled and had two hits for Houston. The Astros salvaged the final game of the three-game series to avoid being swept in a series by the Twins for the first time since August of 2013.

Brown (1-0), ranked the No. 39 prospect by MLB.com and the top-rated prospect in the Astros organization, picked up his third major league win in his ninth career game and fourth start. The fifth round pick out of Division II Wayne State University in Detroit walked two and struck out seven.

Donovan Solano had an RBI double for Minnesota which had a two-game win streak snapped. Tyler Mahle (1-1) took the loss allowing four runs on eight hits over six innings. He walked one and struck out six.

Houston took a 2-0 lead in the third inning when Dubon reached base on a two-out infield single and then scored on McCormick's second homer of the season, a 354-foot opposite field drive into the flower bed in the overhang in right field.

The Twins cut the lead to 2-1 in the fourth when Byron Buxton led off with an infield single, went to second on a throwing error by Alex Bregman and scored two outs later on Solano's line double down the right field line.

The Astros extended their lead to 4-1 in the fifth when Pena led off with a single and advanced to third on an opposite two-out double by Dubon. McCormick then drove in both runners with a broken-bat single to center.

Pena made it 5-1 in the eighth with an RBI double down the left field line, driving in Yordan Alvarez who had singled.