Chicago, IL – Jed Lowrie hit a two-run homer and knocked in three, Brian Bogusevic had a three-run blast and the Houston Astros defeated the Chicago White Sox, 8-3, in the first of three interleague games from U.S. Cellular Field.
Brett Wallace also homered for the Astros, who snapped a two-game slide.
Wandy Rodriguez (5-4) allowed three runs on nine hits and a walk over 5 1/3 innings to earn the win.
Gavin Floyd (4-6) gave up four runs on four hits and two walks while striking out nine over a six-inning start for Chicago, which lost for the third time in four games.
"When you fall behind, you give a guy the ability to sit on it and go after a fastball. His location needs to be better when they are in hitter's counts," Chicago manager Robin Ventura said about Floyd.
Houston jumped out to the early lead when Jose Altuve led off the game with a ground-rule double to left field, advanced to third on a wild pitch and came home on Lowrie's sacrifice fly to center field.
Wallace's leadoff home run to right in the second gave the Astros a two-run advantage.
After the White Sox left the bases loaded in the third inning and stranded a runner on second in the fourth, Houston made it a 4-0 game in the fifth when Lowrie followed Jordan Schafer's two-out walk with a blast over the right- field wall.
Chicago was able to get on the board in the bottom of the fifth when Alejandro De Aza led off the frame with a double, moved to third on Gordon Beckham's fly out to left field and came home on an Adam Dunn grounder to first.
Alex Rios then started the sixth with a double to left-center field and came home on A.J. Pierzynski's two-bagger down the first-base line. Alexei Ramirez later singled in Pierzynski to bring the White Sox within one and knock Rodriguez out of the game.
But Houston answered with a run in the seventh after a pair of defensive gaffes by the White Sox.
Justin Maxwell led off the inning with a base hit off reliever Matt Thornton and moved to third two batters later when Ramirez had a hard grounder off the bat of Altuve skip off the tip of his glove and go into left field.
Altuve was then caught in a rundown between first and second when he was picked off first base, but Ramirez lost track of Maxwell at third while running down Altuve in the basepath, allowing Maxwell to cross the plate for a 5-3 edge.
Wesley Wright stranded the tying runs on second and third in the seventh inning and Fernando Rodriguez left a man on second in the eighth before Houston put the game away in the ninth with Bogusevic's three-run blast into the right-field bleachers.
"We played a lot of close games this year. Early on, we were kind of on the short end of a lot of them and it takes time to learn to do the little things that kind of turn it in your favor," said Bogusevic.
Brett Myers worked a perfect bottom of the ninth to seal the victory for Houston.
Game Notes
Astros third baseman Chris Johnson left the game in the sixth inning with stomach nausea...White Sox left fielder Dayan Viciedo left the game in the sixth inning with a sore hamstring...Wandy Rodriguez has now pitched five-plus innings in 42 straight starts...Chicago leads the all-time series between the teams, 10-9.
Receive your weekly recap of all the happenings around the world of sports.