By ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON (AP) — Jake Meyers hit an RBI double and the surging Houston Astros beat the Miami Marlins, 6-3, on Thursday night, July 11, completing a three-game sweep with their ninth straight victory at home.
“We played well and I thought that we got some big hits at big moments,” manager Joe Espada said. “We got pretty good pitching on the front end and the back end and basically we did exactly what we intended to do.”
Houston has won nine of 12 overall to improve to 49-44.
“We’ve persevered and have come a long way,” Espada said. “There was no doubt in my mind that we would and that we were going to get back into the race.”
After coming off the injured list, Jake Bloss allowed four hits and two runs over four innings for the Astros in his second major league start. Tayler Scott (6-2) got the last two outs in the sixth for the win and Josh Hader struck out two in a scoreless ninth for his 17th save.
Bryan De La Cruz and Jazz Chisholm Jr. each hit a solo homer for the National League-worst Marlins, who were swept for the eighth time this season.
Miami rookie Roddery Muñoz (1-4) permitted five hits and six runs — four earned — in 6 2/3 innings. He also had two wild pitches and a balk.
“I thought he did really good containing them when they had guys on base,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “We could have gotten in much more trouble than what we did. He really limited some damage.”
There was one out in the first when De La Cruz homered to left field to put the Marlins up early.
Alex Bregman walked with one out in the bottom of the inning before a double by Yainer Diaz. Houston tied it when Bregman scored on a sacrifice fly by Jon Singleton.
Jeremy Peña’s single on a line drive to right sent another run home to put Houston up 2-1.
Xavier Edwards walked to start the second and moved to second on a wild pitch by Bloss. Another wild pitch left Edwards at third with two outs, and the Marlins tied it when he scored on a single by Nick Fortes.
Trey Cabbage hit a one-out double in the second and advanced to third on a wild pitch by Muñoz. The Astros regained the lead when Cabbage scored on a groundout by César Salazar.
Joey Loperfido walked with no outs in the fourth and scored on a double by Meyers that made it 4-2. Salazar was hit by a pitch with one out before Jose Altuve reached on a fielder’s choice as third baseman Jake Burger committed a fielding error that loaded the bases.
Bregman grounded into a forceout that scored Meyers to extend the lead to 5-2.
Shawn Dubin replaced Bloss to start the fifth and was greeted with a towering home run by Chisholm that made it 5-3.
The Astros added another run in the fifth thanks in large part to sloppy play by the Marlins. Singleton reached to start the inning on an error by right fielder Jesús Sánchez when he dropped a routine fly. There was one out when Singleton moved to second on a wild pitch by Muñoz and then took third on a balk by the right-hander. Houston made it 6-3 when Singleton scored on a sacrifice fly by Loperfido.
“Good teams capitalize on mistakes,” Schumaker said. “That’s a really good team. They smell blood when there’s errors.”
