Astros outlast Cardinals 9-8

The Astros scored early and often tonight against Jaime Garcia and the St. Louis Cardinals and held on for a 9-8 win. After Astros starter Lucas Harrell gave up an unearned run in the top of the first, Jose Altuve and company were quick to provide some offensive support. Altuve led off with a double down the leftfield line and scored when  J.D. Martinez stroked a two-out single up the middle. After a couple of walks and a wild pitch, Chris Snyder plated a pair of runs with a single to left and the Astros took a 4-1 lead.

Justin Maxwell blasted a long 2-run homer in the second to make it 6-1. Cardinals first-baseman Matt Adams made things interesting with a 3-run shot in the third inning that cleared Tal’s hill. Brian Bogusevic got the Astros second longball of the night in the fourth inning. Bogey hit a towering fly high off the rightfield foul pole to make it 7-4.

Meanwhile, Harrell was getting ahead of hitters and getting lots of weak contact by Cardinals hitters. Harrell scattered eight hits over six innings. He struck out one and didn’t walk a batter. Harrell threw 76 of his 97 pitches for strikes and coaxed 11 ground ball outs with only two flyouts.

Jose Altuve got his fourth hit of the game in the sixth inning and scored the Astros eighth run of the night on a throwing error by Cards reliever Sam Freeman. Chris Johnson and Brett Wallace teamed up for run number nine with back-to-back doubles in the seventh. St. Louis scored four times in the ninth before Brett Myers closed them out for his 14th save.