Kyle Tucker blasted a tiebreaking, 422-foot homer in the seventh inning, leading the Houston Astros to a 6-5 win over the host Miami Marlins on Tuesday night.
Astros second baseman Jose Altuve was removed from the game in the first inning due to a contusion on his left knee, where he fouled off a pitch.
Prior to the dinger, Tucker had been 0-for-7 in his career against Miami reliever A.J. Puk (5-5). Chas McCormick and Yainer Diaz also homered for Houston, which overcame a 3-0 deficit to end a two-game skid.
Hunter Brown (9-8) pitched two scoreless innings out of the Astros’ bullpen to earn the victory, snapping Miami’s three-game win streak.
Ryan Pressley, who hadn’t pitched in a week, tossed a scoreless ninth for his 28th save of the season. He worked around Jesus Sanchez’s one-out double, striking out Avisail Garcia and Joey Wendle to end the game.
Jorge Soler led the Marlins by hitting his 30th homer of the season, a two-run blast.
Miami opened the scoring in the second inning when Jazz Chisholm Jr. tripled down the first base line and scored on Bryan De La Cruz’s bloop single to center.
The Marlins made it 3-0 in the third as Wendle singled and scored on Soler’s homer.
Houston cut the deficit to 3-2 in the fourth as Yordan Alvarez doubled off the wall in right and Diaz homered over the fence in left-center.
In the bottom of the fourth, Miami extended its lead to 4-2 as Chisholm singled, stole second and scored on Sanchez’s two-out single to right.
Houston tied the score 4-4 in the fifth on a rally set up by singles from Jake Meyers and Mauricio Dubon. Alex Bregman earned an RBI with a groundout, and a line drive from Tucker tied the score when it fell in following a collision between center fielder Chisholm and left fielder De La Cruz. Chisholm, who had the ball before the crash, was charged with an error.
Miami took a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the fifth as Houston made two throwing errors on the same play — by Dubon, who replaced Altuve at second, and by starting pitcher Cristian Javier. That allowed Wendle to score all the way from first on Josh Bell’s grounder.
McCormick tied the score 5-5 with his solo blast in the sixth. In the seventh, it was Tucker’s solo shot that gave the Astros the lead.
Marlins starter Johnny Cueto gave up five runs (four earned) on seven hits in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out three and walked two.
Javier yielded five runs (four earned) on six hits and a walk in 4 2/3 innings. He fanned two.
–Field Level Media
