Recap: Houston vs. Pittsburgh
Sports Network | September 09, 2008
Houston, TX (Sports Network) - Lance Berkman homered, scored three runs and drove in four more during a 3-for-4 night at the plate, as the Houston Astros continued their torrid post-All Star break stretch with a 9-3 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Darin Erstad and Miguel Tejada each had three hits and scored twice for the Astros, who have won 12 of their last 13 games and are an MLB-best 34-16 after the Mid-Summer Classic.
Randy Wolf (10-11) moved to 4-1 in nine starts in a Houston uniform, allowing three runs on four hits through seven frames as the Astros are just 4 1/2 games back of the NL wild card-leading Milwaukee Brewers.
Steve Pearce hit his first career home run, while Ross Ohlendorf (0-1) was touched for six runs on nine hits in his second start with the Pirates, who have dropped four straight.
Nate McLouth worked a walk to start the game, moved to second on a groundout and scored on Ryan Doumit's single. Adam LaRoche followed with a double to score Doumit for a 2-0 Pirates lead.
But with one swing of the bat, Berkman gave the Astros the lead for good, bringing home Erstad and Tejada in the bottom half on his 28th homer.
Berkman doubled in another run in the third, and with the bases loaded and one out, David Newhan scored one more with a groundout for a 5-2 edge.
An Erstad RBI double in the fourth was added to, an inning later, Geoff Blum's run-scoring triple and Newhan's base hit to score Blum two batters later, making it 8-2.
Hunter Pence tacked on another run in the sixth. With runners on first and second, Pence drove a ball deep to right-center that bounced off the top of the wall. The hit was ruled a double, but the umpires used the newly-installed replay system to confirm, and the replay validated the original call.
Pearce's solo round-tripper in the seventh accounted for the game's final tally.
Randy Wolf reached double-digit wins for the fifth time in his career. He retired 20 of the final 22 he faced and won his fifth straight decision over the Pirates...Tejada extended his hitting streak to 10 games...Pirates second baseman Freddy Sanchez left in the second inning with blurred vision. He is listed as day-to-day...Before the game, Houston purchased the contract of pitcher Dave Borkowski from Triple-A Round Rock.
