Rodriguez continues hot streak, beats Pirates
Wandy Rodriguez looks to be in his element as he picked up his third straight win, leading the Houston Astros over the Pittsburgh Pirates. The win gives the Astros a good start against the Pirates in their three-game series, which is taking place in Houston.
Rodriguez, now just 6-10 on the year, looked very good throughout the game and managed to strike out 10 batters over the seven innings he pitched, and let in just four hits and one run to put his team in a very good position to win.
He’s been near perfect for the past three games, letting in just two runs in that span for a ERA of 0.90. In the same period, he dropped his season ERA from 6.09 to 5.00 and has amassed the longest winning streak of an Astros pitcher this year.
Conversely, Brad Lincoln, Pittsburgh’s starter, gave a weak performance, letting in five runs in just as many innings. It comes just one game after he pitched the strongest game of his season, throwing seven scoreless innings on June 30th against the Chicago Cubs. He surrendered seven hits and let in a single walk and did not manage to record a single strikeout.
The trouble for Lincoln started early when he conceded two runs in the bottom of the first, including a solo home run to Carlos Lee. They added three more in the third, as Lance Berkman cracked another two-run home run to put him at three RBIs for the night.
Pittsburgh managed their only run against Rodriguez in the seventh when Ryan Doumit singled to score Andrew McCutchen. They would add another run in the eighth, but that was as close as they came.
“Nothing’s different.”
So what’s changed to allow Rodriguez to win three in a row after going 3-10 to start the year? According to him, nothing.
“Nothing different,” he said. “I try to throw the ball where I want, and I just throw my pitches. I’m the same. I’ve felt great the last three starts. When I have good command on my breaking ball and fastball, you can see a lot of games like this.”
With these past few performances, it seems he’s finally realizing the potential he showed in last year’s campaign, when he went 14-12. Astros’ manager Brad Mills said he wasn’t surprised by his starter’s strong play.
“We knew that he had the ability to throw like that,” Mills said. “He threw like this several times last year. He’s just built good start after good start after good start, and that’s what we were looking for, to be able to put it all together.”
They also had the benefit of strong play from Jeff Keppinger and Lance Berkman. Keppinger had three hits and drove in a run, while Berkman knocked in three.
"Keppinger does his thing, gets three more hits tonight," said Astros manager Brad Mills. "It's nice to see 2-3-4-5 (in the lineup) get the big portion of our hits tonight."
Battle of the Bottom Dwellers
It was a top-quality performance from one of the worst quality teams in the majors. The Astros are sitting at 33-51 in the NL Central division, probably the weakest in baseball. Before Tuesday’s match, they’d lost three games in a row to San Diego and had only put together two runs during that stretch.
But at .393 on the year, they’re not even the worst team in the division. That dubious honour goes to Pittsburgh, who have a 30-53 record on the year and sit 2.5 games behind the Astros. Before Tuesday’s loss, they were actually looking good, having beaten Pittsburgh three games in a row.
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