Houston @ Washington preview

Last Meeting ( Sep 22, 2010 ) Houston 3, Washington 4

What looked like a certainty a couple of days ago now appears to be a longshot for the Houston Astros.

The Astros will be looking to kick off the winning streak they’ll need to finish the season at .500 when they close out a four-game set against the Washington Nationals on Thursday.

Houston, which owned the worst record in baseball over the first two months of the season and looked like a safe bet to finish way down in the standings, was putting quite an incredible run together to surge all the way up into third place in the National League Central and make a run at finishing the season .500 or better.

After taking the first game of the series on Monday, 8-2, the Astros had lifted their record to 73-77 and needed to win eight of their last 12 to finish the season at .500. With a 33-18 record over their previous 51 games, that finish did not seem too far out of the question.

But back-to-back tough losses have made the hole bigger. The Astros took leads into the late innings in each of Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s games only to watch the bullpen falter in both instances.

Now it will take an 8-2 finish to the season, with seven more games on the road to go before finishing at home against the Chicago Cubs.

Nelson Figueroa will try to keep Houston’s string of great starts alive when he takes the mound in Thursday’s finale.

The journeyman right-hander was strong when he first joined the Astros’ rotation, going 2-1 with a 2.57 ERA and a .223 batting average against in his first five starts. The last two have not been nearly as pretty, however, as Figueroa has failed to get out of the fifth inning either time while allowing a total of nine runs, seven earned, and three home runs.

He made a pair of relief appearances against Washington when he was with the Philadelphia Phillies earlier in the season, yielding a total of two earned runs on three hits over 5 1/3 innings. In his career, Figueroa is 2-4 with a 3.26 ERA in 10 games (seven starts) against the Nationals.

Washington will counter with left-hander Ross Detwiler. The 24-year-old former No. 6 overall draft pick is in his second stint with the big-league club this season but has performed only in relief since making his return in September. That role seemed to suit him, as Detwiler allowed a total of three hits in six scoreless innings over three appearances.

But starting is where the Nationals hope the future lies for Detwiler, who went 0-2 with a 3.46 ERA in three starts earlier this season. He has never faced the Astros.