Jason Alexander has career night to lead Astros over Marlins

Jason Alexander pitched six scoreless innings to lead the visiting Houston Astros to an 8-2 win over the Miami Marlins on Monday night.

Astros outfielder Jesus Sanchez, who made his MLB debut with the Marlins in 2020, slugged an RBI double to open the scoring during Houston's five-run fourth inning.

It was Sanchez's fourth game with the Astros after being acquired on July 31. He played 532 games over his first six MLB seasons with the Marlins.

Alexander (2-1) allowed just three hits and one walk. He struck out six batters. For Alexander, 32, it was the longest scoreless outing of his career.

Javier Sanoja and Derek Hill homered for Miami in the seventh. It was the first time in 19 years that the Marlins slugged consecutive pinch-hit homers.

After giving up just one run (zero earned) over his last two starts, Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara (6-10) lasted seven innings, allowing nine hits, one walk and six runs.

Alcantara was perfect through three innings. But he needed 26 pitches to get through a rough fourth frame as the Astros scored five runs on six hits.

Jeremy Pena started the rally with a double. Sanchez pulled the next pitch for an RBI double to right, ambushing his former teammate Alcantara. Jose Altuve followed with a bunt single and a steal before the Astros capped the rally with Carlos Correa's single, Christian Walker's infield force out and Yainer Diaz's two-run double.

One of the game's biggest moments occurred in the sixth inning after Miami loaded the bases with two outs on singles by Kyle Stowers and Agustin Ramirez and a walk to Liam Hicks.

But then Otto Lopez, who is 5-for-11 with the bases loaded, grounded out to end the threat.

Houston extended its lead to 6-0 in the seventh as Cam Smith singled and scored from first on Pena's double.

Miami closed its deficit to 6-2 in the bottom of the seventh as Sanoja and Hill went deep.

Houston scored twice in the eighth thanks to a mental mistake by Lopez at shortstop.

With one out and Victor Caratini at first, Diaz hit what should've been a double-play grounder. Marlins first baseman Eric Wagaman scooped up the grounder, stepped on the bag and fired to shortstop Lopez, who tagged second base and tossed it back to Wagaman. However, since Wagaman had touched first, Lopez needed to tag Caratini and he failed to do so.

Houston took advantage as Mauricio Dubon stroked an RBI double and Smith lined a run-scoring single.

--Field Level Media