HOUSTON — The Houston Astros clawed back to tie the game in the eighth inning on Sunday afternoon at Daikin Park, only to watch a 10th-inning miscue unravel everything. The St. Louis Cardinals scored three times on a Masyn Winn double to complete a three-game sweep, handing Houston a 7-5 loss and dropping the Astros to 8-15 on the season, their fourth consecutive defeat and 12th in their last 14 games.
Mike Burrows gave the Astros every reason for optimism early. The right-hander retired the first 14 Cardinals in order, with his velocity up a tick from his previous starts and his five-pitch mix generating weak contact. Then it all came apart.
Masyn Winn singled to break up the perfecto with one out in the fifth, and the Cardinals sent nine men to the plate from there. Nathan Church walked, Pedro Pagés reached on an infield single, and Victor Scott II drew a bases-loaded walk to force in the game’s first Cardinals run. Burrows was done after 4⅔ innings, charged with three runs. Iván Herrera added a fourth RBI single off reliever Steven Okert, who inherited the mess, to make it 4-1. He struck out seven—a season high—but his ERA sits at 6.75 through five starts.
Houston had taken a 1-0 lead in the third on a play that required some nerve. Taylor Trammell sent a drive toward right field, but his back-swing struck catcher Pedro Pagés in the head, and Trammell paused to check on him before realizing the ball would land fair. He broke late and still reached third when the ball ricocheted off the wall and back toward the infield. Pagés was evaluated by a trainer and stayed in the game. Carlos Correa then lofted a fly to shallow center, and Trammell tagged and scored when Victor Scott II’s throw home bounced off the pitcher’s mound.
Matthew Liberatore was the story for St. Louis, spinning six innings of one-run ball and holding Houston to three hits. An embattled Astros bullpen kept things from getting worse—Kai-Wei Teng threw two scoreless innings, and Enyel De Los Santos worked one, stranding a one-out double.
The Astros finally stirred in the eighth. With two outs, Yordan Alvarez golfed a low changeup from left-hander JoJo Romero into the right-field seats for his 10th home run of the season—the most in the major leagues through 23 games. Jose Altuve singled and Christian Walker drew a walk, bringing Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien into the game. O’Brien had not allowed a run through 11 outings this season, having faced 37 batters and allowed just four hits. None of that mattered to Isaac Paredes, who was hitless in his last 18 at-bats. On a 2-1 count, Paredes punched a 99.7 mph sinker to right-center field, scoring both runners to tie the game at 4-4.
The rally ended immediately. Brice Matthews entered as a pinch-runner for Paredes at first base and was picked off by O’Brien to strand two runners and end the inning. Bryan King then preserved the tie with an escape act in the top of the ninth, stranding a leadoff double by José Fermín.
The 10th inning is where it slipped away. Matthews, still in the game, began the inning as the automatic runner at second. King retired his first batter, then Jordan Walker hit a routine chopper to third that Matthews mishandled. King clipped Ramón Urías with a slider to load the bases. Winn, a Kingwood High School graduate, pulled a fastball into the left-field corner for a three-run double, and just like that it was 7-4.
The Astros gave it one last push. Dustin Harris, playing in his first game as an Astro after being claimed off waivers from the White Sox on Saturday, began the bottom of the tenth as the automatic runner at second. Trammell singled to move Harris to third, but Harris broke for the plate on Carlos Correa’s tapper back to pitcher Justin Bruihl and was caught in a rundown, leaving men on second and third. Bruihl battled Alvarez for eight pitches before Alvarez lined out to Winn at shortstop. Altuve then bounced a single past Winn to score a run, but Christian Walker grounded out to end it.
Winn finished with three hits and three RBI. Trammell went 2-for-4 with a triple and a run scored in a strong showing. The Astros went 3-for-9 with runners in scoring position and have now been swept in three of their last four series.
The Astros have now lost eleven of their last fifteen and head into the week having been swept at home by St. Louis. They will travel to Cleveland for a three-game series against the Guardians that begins Monday.
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