Jeremy Pena and Isaac Paredes capped three-run uprisings with two-run, extra-base hits to help the Houston Astros claim a 9-2 victory over the visiting Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday.
Pena finished 3-for-5 with a home run and two RBIs, while Paredes went 1-for-3 with a double and a walk. Yordan Alvarez and Jake Meyers also produced multi-hit games for the Astros, while Christian Walker clubbed his 16th homer, an opposite-field, three-run shot in the eighth.
Meyers’ run-scoring single in the bottom of the second inning plated Cam Smith and pulled the Astros even at 1-1. Two batters later, Pena drilled a two-run home run out to left field, his third home run of the season covering 392 feet and lifting the Astros to a 3-1 lead.
Brewers right-hander Brandon Sproat (1-4) stranded runners on the corners in the bottom of the first by getting Paredes to ground out to the right side of the infield. He retired seven of the next eight batters after the Pena homer, but came undone when Pena led off the fifth with a single.
Sproat departed after hitting Walker with a pitch, and Taylor Trammell greeted Brewers reliever Carlos Rodriguez with an infield RBI single that ricocheted off the glove of first baseman Andrew Vaughn. Pena barely beat the throw home from second baseman Brice Turang.
Paredes extended the Astros’ 4-2 lead when he roped a double to left that scored Walker and Trammell. Sproat was charged with five runs, six hits, and posted four strikeouts in 4? innings.
Astros right-hander Peter Lambert (4-4) labored over five innings but effectively kept the Brewers in check.
William Contreras’ RBI double in the top of the first drove home Turang and spotted the Brewers a 1-0 lead. Jackson Chourio stroked an RBI single in the fifth that pulled the Brewers to within 3-2, but Lambert stranded the bases loaded by getting Contreras to ground out to Pena at short.
Lambert surrendered two runs on five hits and three walks with three strikeouts.
The Brewers lost for just the fifth time over their last 21 games, while the Astros have won 10 of 15.
