Bud Norris leads the Astros to win over Brewers

The Astros won their second series of the season thanks to a strong performance from starting pitcher Bud Norris. He had his longest outing of the season going 7.2 innings while only giving up three hits and no runs. He also struck out 11, which was a season high and was three short of his career best of 14.

Even Prince Fielder hitting a ball off his arm in the seventh could slow down Norris, who then gave up a double to Mark Kotsay but shut down the Brewers’ by getting Yuniesky Betancourt for the third out. Norris and the rest of the Astros pitching staff allowed only four Brewers to get into scoring position the whole game. It is good to see the Astros putting two good pitching performances back to back as Wandy Rodriguez and Norris combined for 15.2 innings of scoreless ball. Norris improved to 2-1 on the season.

Everything seemed to be rolling for the Astros until the seventh inning when Carlos Lee was carted off the field after colliding with Angel Sanchez chasing a pop fly. Carlos Lee can not catch a break as he was having his best day at the plate so far this season, going 2 for 3 with two runs scored and a towering 3 run home run in the sixth inning. He was carted off the field and taken to the hospital for a number of tests. Jason Bourgeois added an additional run on an infield single in the bottom of the seventh.

It is tough to see Carlos Lee go down but this will most likely give Bourgeois more playing time who has been playing very well as of late. This will hopefully also open up the opportunity for Brad Mills to move Wallace up in the lineup, who has been having a great first month to the season.

The Astros are back at it tomorrow as they head up to the Great American Ballpark to take on another divisional foe, the Cincinnati Reds, in a three game set.