Astros drop fifth in a row on the road

Everybody remembers summer road trips as a kid but the Astros will want to forget this road trip as they lost for the fifth straight game, this time 3-1 to the Cardinals. Tonight Brett Myers took the mound for the Astros and would of had a good game if it wasn’t for his continued struggle with the long ball. It didn’t take long for the Cardinals to get on the board as Albert Pujols hit a two run homer in the first.

That is all the runs they would need for Jake Westbrook, who had one of his better games of the season, giving up only one run on the night over six innings of work. The Cardinals finished the night out with the help of four relief pitchers with Fernando Salas picking up his 19th save of the year.

Tonight was by no means a bad start for Myers, who was the only pitcher the Astros used, going 8.0 innings with the three earned runs and four strikeouts. Myers didn’t give up any walks but worked his way out of a number of jams as he did give up 11 hits. The home run has been his nemesis all season as  he has given up 26 home runs now in 22 starts.

The offense did Myers no favors tonight as they only were able to put together one run thanks to an RBI single by Carlos Lee that brought Michael Bourn home. Bourn had another strong game with a stolen base and two hits in addition to the run scored and is currently riding a 10 game hit streak.

The other big story over the past week other than Bourn has to be the play of Jose Altuve. He has a hit in all six games since being called up and is hitting .381 on the season. The guy looks like the real deal and hopefully can provide some stability to the second base position.

Bud Norris gets the start for the Astros in game three of the four game set as he has the tough assignment of going up against Chris Carpenter.