Astros Fall to the Cards 5-4

Wesley Wright did not provide any relief tonight.

Brett Wallace (Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports)

The final line for Jordan Lyles didn’t look great, but the right hander pitched pretty well for the most part even though his final line says he gave up four runs in 6.1 innings. Lyles allowed six hits and two walks while only striking out two Cardinals.

Lyles hit Tony Cruz to start off the 7th inning and then struck out Yadier Molina before giving way to Wright. With left handed hitting Matt Carpenter coming to the plate, the move made sense to bring in the southpaw. Ultimately though it backfired as Carpenter hit a two run homer to put St. Louis up 5-4.

Houston jumped out to an early second inning lead as Chris Carter hit his team leading 18th home run off young phenom Shelby Miller. The Astros chased Miller after five innings and two more runs.

Brett Wallace continued his hot hitting since being recalled and had his first career four hit game, going 4-5. He scored the second run of the game for the Astros in the 2nd inning as he scored when Carpenter booted a Matt Dominguez ground ball.

In the ninth inning, Wallace struck again with a one out single. J.D. Martinez then hit into what appeared to be a game ending double play. Instead the ball was booted by third baseman Daniel Descalso and the Astros were given another life. Carlos Pena then came up with two runners on and promptly hit into a double play to end the game.

That was symbolic of the Astros night as they had no problem getting runners on base, but just couldn’t drive them in. Houston was 2 for 14 tonight with runners in scoring position. Their two hits came on RBI singles by Martinez in the fifth, and Wallace in the seventh.

The Astros are off on Thursday before heading to Tampa Bay to close out the first half of the season.