HOUSTON -- The Braves hoped to add an exclamation mark that would make it one of their best road trips in recent memory, but instead they swallowed what nearly became their worst loss in 20 games.
The Astros rocked Derek Lowe for five runs in fewer than six innings of an 8-3 rout Monday night at Minute Maid Park, snapping the Braves’ six-game winning streak to leave them 7-3 on a 10-game trip.
Until Jordan Schafer's three-run homer with two out in the ninth, the Braves were headed for their most one-sided defeat since a 9-0 loss at Anaheim on May 20.
The Braves said it was a good trip, but....
“But tonight, it’s frustrating," catcher Brian McCann said. "We played good baseball on this road trip as a whole. We won six in a row. Tonight was tough, for sure.”
Hunter Pence went 3-for-4 with a two-run homer and four RBIs as the Astros averted a season sweep by the Braves. Atlanta won five of six between the teams, who don't meet again this season.
Lowe (3-5) allowed five runs, eight hits and three walks 5-1/3 innings, and the Astros blew the game open with a five-run sixth against Lowe and reliever Scott Linebrink.
After his winless streak was extended to seven starts, Lowe left without speaking to reporters, exiting to the team bus before the clubhouse was open to the media.
The Braves allowed more runs in the sixth inning than in any game entire during their winning streak. The Astros scored more runs in that inning than they totaled in any of their previous nine games, including eight losses.
Astros left-hander Wandy Rodriguez (4-3) pitched six scoreless innings of two-hit ball in his first game back from the disabled list, after missing three starts with fluid in his pitching elbow.
The Braves had a chance to do some damage against him in the first inning, after opening with a Schafer double and Uggla walk. But McCann flied out, Chipper Jones grounded out, and after Freddie Freedman walked to load the bases, Joe Mather struck out trying to check his swing.
“I thought Wandy was pretty good," said manager Fredi Gonzalez, whose second-place Braves slipped to 2-1/2 games behind idle Philadelphia in the National League East standings. "He snuck out of some of those jams early on, and we just couldn’t get anything going. He changed speeds and got out of some jams."
"Pretty good" was about as much credit as the Braves were willing to give on a night when they went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, the lone hit Schafer's homer in the ninth.
“We just didn’t swing the bats well," McCann said. "He [Rodriguez] threw OK, nothing great. He kept us off-balance a little bit, but we just didn’t swing the bats.”
Lowe is 0-2 with a 4.91 ERA in his past seven starts, and allowed five earned runs for the third time in that run. He’s had starts where he pitched well but got no run support during that stretch, and starts where he pitched poorly.
On Monday, he neither pitched well nor received run support.
Pence gave the Astros a 2-0 lead with his homer in the third inning, after Clint Barmes' two-out single. Lowe was one strike from getting out of the inning when Pence hit an 0-and-2 pitch over the left-field wall.
“I called an 0-2 fastball to Pence, and it was just the wrong pitch selection," McCann said. "I shouldn’t have gone there with that pitch. After that, I thought he pitched OK tonight. Just that one pitch.
"Those are hard to swallow. If he gets through that inning, it might be a different outcome tonight.”
Schafer made three fine catches on balls in the gaps, and his homer made the final score seem respectable. But he admonished himself for not bunting after Lowe's leadoff double in the fifth inning, when the Astros led 2-0.
Schafer flied out to to center field, and Dan Uggla and McCann grounded out to leave Lowe still at second when the inning was over.
"D-Lowe leads off with a double, I’ve got to bunt that guy over," Schafer said. "That’s terrible on my part. I don’t know what the [heck] I was thinking. We get lucky there, D-Lowe leads off with a double, it’s a whole different game if I bunt that guy over. Then a groundball gets him in, it’s 2-1 and we’ve got some momentum going. So I’ve got to a lot better job on that.”
Rodriguez won for just the third time in 11 starts against the Braves. He had posted a 1.33 ERA in his past four starts against the them, but had an 0-1 record in those games because of poor run support.
Teammates looked like they wanted to try to make up for it in one inning.
With the score still 2-0 after five innings, the Astros opened the the sixth with hits by three of their first four batters, including an RBI double by Brett Wallace.
Lowe was replaced after the third hit of the inning, and Matt Downs greeted Linebrink with an RBI double. Linebrink intentionally walked the next hitter after falling behind in the count. Clint Barmes followed with a sacrifice fly before Pence's two-run single pushed the lead to 7-0.
After sweeping a three-game series at Florida for the first time since 1995, the Braves couldn't complete what would've been their first four-game sweep in Houston since 1992.
“When we started this road trip 1-2 [against the Mets], if you’d have said we would you take 7-3, we would have said yeah," Gonzalez said. "But you always want to get greedy and go 8-2.
"But any time you go 7-3 on a long troad trip, we’ll take it. I’m proud of the way the guys played after that first series in New York. We really played some good baseball. Obviously it didn’t come out the way we wanted, but regroup, come home tomorrow and play three tough series against the Mets, Texas and Toronto.”
