Houston @ Milwaukee preview
American Family Field
Last Meeting ( May 25, 2010 ) Houston 1, Milwaukee 6
The Milwaukee Brewers finally snapped their long home losing skid and look to add another victory today at Miller Park against the Houston Astros.
Milwaukee got two-run home runs from Ryan Braun and Rickie Weeks and strong pitching from Randy Wolf to beat Houston 6-1 in the series opener Tuesday night.
The Brewers, who had lost eight straight at home, recorded their first victory at Miller Park since a 17-3 drubbing of the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 26.
If the Brewers are going to put any kind of home streak together, they are going to have to score some runs off of one of the National League's best pitchers while hoping the Astros’ offense continues its season of futility.
Roy Oswalt gets the start for Houston amid trade talk that started Friday when he asked the team to be dealt to a contender.
Oswalt has made nine straight quality starts to open the season but is 2-6 despite a stellar ERA of 2.66. Part of his frustration and desire to play somewhere else stems from the fact that he has received the lowest run support in the league.
Houston has scored a paltry 132 runs and hit just 24 homers this season, by far the fewest in the majors in both categories. By contrast, the Toronto Blue Jays lead all of baseball with 76 homers, more than three times Houston's total.
The Astros have already lost 30 games and a defeat today would give them their third four-game losing streak this month.
While the Astros have been finding runs hard to come by, the Brewers have been scoring in bunches. Milwaukee is the second-highest scoring team in the NL with 228 runs and has hit 54 homers.
Starter Chris Narveson (4-1, 5.17) goes for the Brewers and has been a beneficiary of all that run support.
Narveson's ERA is nearly double Oswalt's and his 2-1 strikeout to walk ratio is shoddy compared to Oswalt's 3.75-1 ratio. Oswalt is tied for sixth in the NL with 60 strikeouts and has allowed 16 walks in 61 innings.
The Brewers are searching for consecutive home wins for only the second time this season. They did it back on April 6-7 against the Colorado Rockies in the first series of the season.
Milwaukee has a better record than Houston but the Brewers are still just 5-14 at home while the lowly Astros have been able to cobble together six road wins in 23 tries.