The Astros lost their 2nd game in a row against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday 5-1. The 5th inning is where the Cards took control when they put up 4 runs to take a 4-1 lead. The loss brings the ‘Stros record to 12-14 and leaves them in 4th place of the NL Central just 4.5 games back from the division leading Cubs.
The offense seemed to struggle the most only putting up 4 hits and were pretty much handled by the Cardinal pitchers. The only RBI came off the bat of Mark Loretta in the 2nd inning. Loretta went 1-for-3 including his 7th RBI of the season. He has his batting average at .227 this season as he filled in for the injured Ty Wigginton at 3rd base. Lance Berkman scored the lone run for the Astros going 1-for-4 with the run scored and has continued to keep his batting average well above .300. The other 2 hits came from Miguel Tejada and Brandon Backe. Tejada went 1-for-4 keeping his batting average at .340. Backe, who was the starter for the Astros, went 1-for-2.
As stated above Brandon Backe took the mound for Houston and pitched an ‘okay’ 5 innings. He gave up 5 hits, 4 runs, 4 strike outs, 5 walks and gave up a homer to Troy Glaus in the 5th. He was given the loss bringing his record to 1-3 this season with a 4.65 ERA. Brian Moehler came in for the 7th and gave up 1 hit which was a homer to Albert Pujols. Kyle Lohse got the start for the Cardinals and pitched an effective 6 innings. He allowed just 4 hits, 1 run, 1 walk and 3 K’s. He was given the win for St. Louis making his record 3-0 and giving him a 2.36 ERA. Kyle McClellan came in to close the game and did exactly that getting his 1st save on the year striking out 2 in the process.
In the past 2 games Houston has slipped back into their bad habits they were showing before the 6 game win streak. They’ll need to end this little slide before it gets to serious because the NL Central leading Cubs are really playing well right now.
