After struggling to hit against one team from the Lone Star State, the Cardinals got the bats going on Tuesday night in Houston, slugging out 15 hits in a 13-4 win over the Astros. Allen Craig homered and tied a career-high with four hits and had three RBIs, and Carlos Beltran and David Freese each homered.
The Cardinals only scored seven runs against the Texas Rangers at Busch Stadium this past weekend. In the fourth inning, the Cardinals matched that total. Matt Carpenter’s only hit of the night was a bases clearing triple that sparked the rally off Houston starter Lucas Harrell. Â Harrell, now 5-8, came into game pitching well in June, with an ERA of 1.73 ERA in his last four starts this month, but he allowed seven hits and seven runs with four walks in 3.1 innings.
Jake Westbrook, 4-2, Â put together his first solid outing since returning from the DL. He did not allow a hit until the sixth inning. However, things soured for him. Matt Dominguez got Houston’s first hit of the game on a towering home run to left field. Brett Wallace,the former Cardinals prospect, added a two-run triple in that inning in his first game back from Triple-A.
“As well as I was pitching it was a little disappointing,” Westbrook said of his difficult sixth inning. “In my eyes I felt like I should have pitched a little bit better in that inning. But the offense was great tonight and really picked me up and picked us up as a team, so that was good to see.”
