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Astros continue their winning ways against playoff bound teams beat Red 5-3

As Hunter Pence said on twitter:

Time to get at the reds, and make their road a lil tougher! :)

Wandy Rodriguez had a little bit of everything going on tonight.

He had a no-hitter going through the fifth inning, but gave that away on a Joey Votto double to begin the sixth. Shortly after that he gave up a 3-run homerun to Johnny Gomes. He also walked six but struck out 10. Regardless of all that he was able to get through sixth inning for his 11th consecutive quality start.

Carlos Lee was able to tie the game in the sixth inning. Angel Sanchez continued to get the big hit driving in two with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 7th. The pitcher Sanchez drove in those runs off of were none other than Aroldis Chapman, who allowed his first earned runs since being called up to the majors, and took the loss.

This was a bad game for the Red's who allowed two errors. Overall defensively they rank first in errors allowed and in the top 10 in both UZR and UZR/150.

The Astros defense on the other hand was all over the place, both Pence and Jason Bourgeois made outstanding diving plays.

Brad Mills pieced the bullpen together using five relievers to conserve the win.

This brought up a bit of discussion in the game thread about Mills use of matchups and using relievers for one or two outs at a time. Obviously the results have been good but there is some concern with the use of relievers taking into account the warm up pitches required to get a reliever ready.