Houston @ Milwaukee preview
American Family Field
Last Meeting ( Aug 1, 2010 ) Milwaukee 2, Houston 5
The Houston Astros have been playing some of their best baseball to date. The Milwaukee Brewers can certainly attest to that.
Prior to the Astros’ season-best seven-game win streak coming to end on Wednesday, they handed the Brewers three losses during a sweep over the past weekend.
Houston outscored Milwaukee 16-2 in the series and pulled within two games of their third-place counterparts in the NL Central, no small feat for a team that was awful coming out of the gate.
The two squads will again lock horns when they begin a three-game series on Friday. The Astros have won six of nine between the clubs on the campaign.
With just 24 wins at Miller Park, the host Brewers have the fewest home wins in the National League.
Speaking of streaks, Houston starter Wandy Rodriguez (9-11, 4.49 ERA) currently owns a 15-inning scoreless mark - three short of his personal best. The streak has come over the past two starts for the left-hander as he has been one of the league’s hottest pitchers of late.
Rodriguez has been victorious in six of seven starts, posting an ERA of 1.91 in that span. He wasn’t nearly as good to start 2010 in going 2-7 over his initial 10 starts.
For as good as Rodriguez has been recently, he has perhaps been even better when facing the Brewers. For his career, he is 5-2 with a 2.81 ERA in eight starts. Two of those outings came this season with Rodriguez holding Milwaukee to a run over 15 innings in grabbing a pair of wins.
Houston was dealt an 8-4 loss to St. Louis to end its run of wins, but the team is hoping that a hot offense can get another streak started. Over the past eight games, the Astros - who rank near the bottom of the majors in hitting - are batting .320 with eight home runs and 61 total runs.
Given the task to try and slow them will be Milwaukee starter Dave Bush (5-9, 4.55 ERA), who will attempt to right the ship for his team, which has dropped six of eight games.
Bush is coming off his worst outing since May, and it just so happened to come at the hands of the Astros. The veteran left-hander was charged with six runs and 10 hits in five innings of a 6-0 loss on Saturday.