The Astros won for the seventh time in their nine game home stand Wednesday night, defeating the Dodgers 8-5 behind another outstanding outing by starter
Wandy Rodriguez , who improved to 4-0 on the year. The good guys hit the road with a NL leading 15-6 mark after taking the Dodgers series two game to one.
The Astros scored early and often against Dodger starter Odalis Perez.
Brad Ausmus opened the scoring with an RBI single in the second, scoring
Chris Burke. Burke went 3-4 including a pair of doubles while subbing for the injured
Adam Everett at shortstop. In the third,
Willy Taveras doubled in
Craig Biggio , who
had singled, and then in stepped
Lance Berkman, batting righthanded, and crushed a Perez offering over the train tracks to the Union Station building for a two-run blast. Taveras and Berkman each had run scoring singles in the fourth to increase the lead to 6-0. Burke chased Perez in the fifth with an RBI single.
Rodriguez allowed two runs and five hits in seven innings, striking out six. The Astros have averaged 6.4 runs in
his five starts.
"I feel confident going out to the mound, knowing what those guys will do for me," Rodriguez said. "They're scoring runs for me and that's making my job a lot easier."
Burke had an RBI double in the seventh to close out the scoring for the Astros. "I've really felt comfortable in all my at-bats and fortunately, that's shown up in results," said Burke, off to an 11-for-25 start. Burke has worked on moving closer to the plate this year.
"Whatever happened last year to propel us to the run that we made, it's really carried over to this year," Burke said. "Guys expect to win ballgames and that's showing up in the plays we're making."
Chad Qualls pitched a scoreless eight inning, but
Ezequiel Astacio could not record an out in the ninth after loading the bases and had to be relieved by
Dan Wheeler, who gave up a run scoring grounder and a two-run single before retiring the final batter.
Berkman had three hits and three RBIs in the game and now has 24 RBIs on the season.
The Astros have Thursday off before traveling to Cincinnati to begin a weekend series against the Reds that is shaping up as an early duel for first place in the NL Central. The Reds are a ? game behind at 15-7. Fridays starters are
Roy Oswalt vs. Brandon Claussen. Game time is 6:10 CST.
