Astros Battle Back to Split Series With Cards

Wednesday night’s game could not have gotten off to a more ominous start for the Houston Astros. A bunt single by Matt Carpenter followed by a rocket into the Crawford Boxes from Yadier Molina had many Astros’ fans making other plans for the night before the first out of the game was recorded. Erik Bedard would settle down after that, allowing only one more run on an Allen Craig solo homer in the top of the 4th. Bedard left the game with six innings pitched, allowing seven hits and striking out six.

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Cardinals’ starter Lance Lynn looked like he had it on cruise control prior to the fourth inning. Lynn had retired nine of the first ten hitters that he faced before Jose Altuve and Jason Castro had back-to-back singles to lead off the fourth. The Cardinals’ young righty then had some control issues, walking Chris Carter to load the bases, then Carlos Pena to bring home the Astros’ first run. With the bases still loaded, J.D. Martinez hit into a fielder’s choice, scoring Castro from third. With one out in the inning, Brett Wallace followed with a sharp single up the middle to bring home Carter and tie the game at three. After Matt Dominguez‘s fielder’s choice to third base for the second out, Brandon Barnes continued the Astros’ scoring with another single up the middle, bringing home Wallace from second base. That gave the Astros a 4-3 lead, and that would be the end of the scoring.

Lance Lynn was able to settle down after the fourth inning, and finished up going 7.2 innings while allowing five hits and walking four. He drops to 10-2 on the season with a 3.52 ERA. Erik Bedard picked up his third win of the season while raising his ERA by .01, to a 4.44. Josh Fields, Wesley Wright and Jose Cisnero managed to keep the Cardinals off the board for two innings, allowing Jose Veras to come in and collect his 16th save of the season.

Game Notes:

• Cisnero collected his fourth hold of the season and lowered his ERA to a 2.14 in 33.2 innings.
• Yadier Molina’s 2-4 night raised his NL leading batting average to .357.
• The game had a nice NL pace to it, lasting only two hours and 47 minutes.

The Astros have an off day on Thursday, then will pick things up again at Minute Maid against the LA Angels.