Facing Cardinals, Astros seek season's first back-to-back wins

The Houston Astros extended their streak of alternating wins and losses to 12 games with a 2-0 road victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday and set the stage to claim the rubber match of this three-game series and climb back to .500 with a win on Wednesday.

The Astros have not won consecutive games this season.

Pitching continues to carry the team, which has allowed only 115 hits across 153 2/3 innings this season. The back end of the bullpen has thrived, with left-handers Bryan King and Josh Hader and right-hander Bryan Abreu combining to allow two hits over three scoreless innings on just 44 pitches on Tuesday.

Their handiwork set the table for Houston manager Joe Espada to potentially have the entire bullpen at his disposal for the series finale.

Astros right-hander Hunter Brown deserves a bulk of the credit. With his second consecutive start of six scoreless innings, Brown continues to emerge as a staff ace.

"He gets on the mound, and the team is expecting to win," Espada said of Brown. "He has embraced that role.

"He's got the stuff. The guy's got the heart, the conviction behind every pitch. But it's the little things that he's not being bothered by, things that he can't control."

Right-hander Ronel Blanco (1-1, 6.94 ERA) will start the series finale for the Astros on Wednesday. He allowed two runs on five hits and one walk with seven strikeouts over five innings an a 14-3 home win over the Los Angeles Angels on Friday.

In his lone road start this season, Blanco allowed four runs on five hits and three walks with three strikeouts in 1 2/3 innings against the Minnesota Twins on April 6 in a 9-7 extra-inning win.

Blanco has faced the Cardinals once in his career, surrendering four runs on five hits and two walks with two strikeouts over 5 2/3 innings in a 4-2 home loss on June 5, 2024.

Left-hander Steven Matz (0-0, 2.31 ERA) has the starting assignment for the Cardinals on Wednesday. It will mark the first start of the season for Matz, whose previous five appearances have come in relief. He allowed one run on five hits and one walk with one strikeout over 2 1/3 innings but did not factor into the decision of a 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Saturday. Matz has one save and one blown save this season.

Matz is 1-1 with a 4.97 ERA over three career appearances (two starts) against the Astros. He worked 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief on June 29, 2023, allowing one hit and three walks with four strikeouts in the Cardinals' 14-0 home loss.

The addition of Matz to the rotation is in response to the Cardinals' current stretch of 26 games across 27 days with only one off day -- April 24 -- between April 11 and May 7.

"Everybody has been on an extra day of rest this year because of our off days," Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. "The only guy that wasn't was (Erick) Fedde. As we go into this stretch where we don't have an off day, adding the sixth man being Matz allows for everybody to stay on that schedule."

--Field Level Media