Houston Astros (55-56) at Florida Marlins (58-53), 7:10 p.m.
Sports Network | August 10, 2009
(Sports Network) - A big three-game sweep over National League East-leading Philadelphia has Florida right back in the hunt for the division crown. A visit from Houston may allow the club to close the gap even further.
Seeking a sixth straight home win over the Astros, the Marlins begin a four- game set with the visiting squad at Land Shark Stadium.
The Marlins couldn't have been feeling too confident heading into their weekend series with the Phillies, seeing as the club had dropped three straight to the Nationals prior. However, Florida edged out victories of 3-2 and 6-4 to set themselves up for a sweep, a task they accomplished with Sunday's 12-3 triumph.
The win moved the Marlins to within four games of first-place Philadelphia.
Chris Coghlan and Hanley Ramirez keyed the season-high 19-hit attack with four hits each. Ramirez drove in three runs and scored three times, while Coghlan had two RBI and scored a pair of runs. Coghlan also set a club record with his eighth straight multi-hit game, a span in which he is 19-for-38 to break the previous mark shared by Juan Pierre (twice) and Miguel Cabrera.
Starter Josh Johnson backed the offense with six innings of one-run ball.
"We were able to add on runs [Sunday]," said manager Fredi Gonzalez. "The last couple of games we weren't. Johnson had a good outing and our bullpen did a good job."
Florida now takes it swings at the Astros, who haven't won in Miami since August 3, 2007. The Marlins swept their three-game home series with Houston last year and have won five in a row at home over the club overall.
Rick VandenHurk starts for the Marlins and is coming off his first loss of the season. The righty went 1-0 with a 2.65 earned run average through his first three outings before getting tagged for five runs and seven hits, three of those homers, over four innings of a loss to the Nationals on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old VandenHurk, who has never faced Houston, gave up two runs over six innings in his lone home start of the year, a July 30th no-decision versus Atlanta.
Houston comes into this meeting having won Sunday's rubber match, 2-0, over Milwaukee for the club's seventh shutout of the year and first series win since sweeping St. Louis on July 20-22. The Astros have won just four of their last 11 games and are six games back of the first-place Cardinals in the NL Central.
Wandy Rodriguez hurled seven scoreless innings on Sunday and Jose Valverde last notched the final four outs for his 15th save of the season.
"That was a much needed win," said manager Cecil Cooper. "Wandy was terrific again. He got better as the game wore on."
Geoff Blum accounted for all of the offense with a two-run homer in the fourth inning.
Brian Moehler will try to duplicate Rodriguez's success when he starts tonight's game. Moehler, though, is coming off a loss to the Giants on Wednesday in which he was rocked for seven runs (6 earned) over six innings in a 10-6 setback.
The 27-year-old right-hander fell to 7-7 on the season with a 5.23 ERA, though he does sport a 5-1 mark and 3.91 ERA in eight road outings.
Moehler has never started against the Marlins, who he pitched with from 2005-06, and has thrown three scoreless innings of relief against them over two outings.
