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Sports

Astros surrender 4 homers in 13-4 loss to Brewers

Associated Press
Published | Updated

MILWAUKEE – Had a call gone Houston's way, maybe the score wouldn't have been so lopsided. Then again, it is the Astros.

Ryan Braun hit his NL-leading 29th homer and the Milwaukee Brewers connected four times Wednesday, beating the sloppy Astros 13-4 to complete a three-game sweep.

Houston was trailing 3-2 in the fifth when manager Brad Mills thought Nyjer Morgan was caught stealing third. Replays indicated he was out, and on the next pitch, Braun singled home two runs and the Brewers had a 9-2 lead by the time the inning ended.

"If we get that call at third, that's one out and Braun has two strikes on him," Mills said. "The whole inning took a different complexion when that happened. It all went downhill after that, obviously."

Rickie Weeks and Cesar Izturis each homered in the fifth inning, and Jonathan Lucroy added a two-run shot in the seventh, helping rookie Mike Fiers (5-4) win consecutive starts for the first time this season. The right-hander allowed two earned runs and eight hits in six innings to go with six strikeouts.

"It feels good when you get a lot of runs like that," Fiers said. "I'm not really worried about that too much. I'm just trying to do my job and put up zeroes."

Milwaukee, which has won three straight after a 1-9 stretch, benefited from four Houston errors — three within the first six Brewers batters. The Astros lost for the 28th time in 31 games, despite Brett Wallace's first two-homer game.

Jordan Lyles (2-8) tied a career high by giving up seven earned runs in five innings. Winless in his last six starts, the right-hander also allowed nine hits and fell to 0-6 on the road this season.

"We got some breaks today," Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke said. "That (fifth) inning we had two bloops, Corey (Hart) kind of didn't hit his that good down the line, and Braunie hit a ground ball up the middle. We had four lucky hits in an inning, and that has not happened to us. So that was good. We haven't been getting the breaks."

Lyles unraveled in the fifth, when Milwaukee batted around. After Braun's single, Corey Hart added an RBI single and Weeks cracked his 12th homer to right-center. Izturis capped the rally with his second home run of the year for a 9-2 lead.

"It looked like the ball beat (Morgan)," Lyles said. "But the umpire called him safe, so I've got to bear down and try to punch out Braun when I had a chance."

NOTES: Milwaukee, which beat Houston 10-1 on Tuesday, scored at least 10 runs in back-to-back games for the first time since May 4-5, 2010, against the Dodgers. ... The last time Lyles gave up seven earned runs was July 2 against Pittsburgh. ... Milwaukee has hit 22 homers and scored 68 runs in its last 10 games. . Brewers LHP Manny Parra had his pitching shoulder examined after the game. The reliever has not pitched since July 24, and manager Ron Roenicke said Parra will get it checked out again on Monday. He added Parra is not expected to pitch this weekend.