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Astros hold off Phillies

Jul 3, 2007 - 5:09 AM HOUSTON (Ticker) -- The young and the old combined to carry the Houston Astros to their seventh win in their last eight home games Monday night.

Rookie of the Year candidate Hunter Pence homered, 41-year-old Craig Biggio collected three hits and 40-year-old righthander Woody Williams pitched effectively to lead Houston to a 7-5 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.

Williams (4-10) pitched seven innings, tying his longest outing of the season, giving up six hits and three runs with only one strikeout and one walk, an intentional one to Ryan Howard with runners on second and third in the first inning.

Williams began the year 1-7, but is 3-3 in his last seven starts.

"I'm finally starting to turn the corner a little bit," Williams said. "I'm starting to come around physically. Early in the season I could only throw one pitch for a strike, and that one wasn't very good. Everybody puts pressure on yourself when things don't go well. When things weren't going well, I knew I wasn't that bad."

"He located the fastball pretty well tonight and threw his offspeed pitches in pretty good locations," Houston manager Phil Garner said.

Williams needed to help himself defensively Monday with five assists, two of them on tough plays, and a putout at first base.

"Some of it's just self defense," laughed Williams. "Earlier in the season they were smoking the ball back at me."

The Phillies also started a veteran in 44-year-old lefthander Jamie Moyer. "I felt like a rookie," Williams said.

Moyer pitched six innings and gave up four runs on nine hits in losing to a team from the NL Central Division for the first time in his career (6-1). Moyer (7-6) last pitched at Minute Maid Park in June 2002 when he allowed three hits and no runs over seven innings to beat Houston for the Seattle Mariners.

"I felt Jamie threw a lot of pitches early in the game," Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel said. "They hit some balls good. It was just one of those nights for him."

"I think I threw fairly consistently," Moyer said. "I had a couple of walks and two mistakes, one to (Carlos) Lee and one to that No. 2 hitter (Pence). Other than that I think I located the way I wanted. The umpire was tight, but consistent. I can't complain."

Biggio doubled twice and scored twice. His first double was the 1,000th extra base hit of his career and the second was the 660th double of his career, leaving him five behind George Brett for fifth on the all-time list.

"I'm proud of that one, for a top of the order guy," Biggio said of reaching a thousand extra base hits. "Today was good. We're getting on base and getting in scoring position, that's what we're supposed to do."

The three hits by Biggio raised his career hit total to 3,007, tying him with Al Kaline for 25th all-time.

Lee drove in Biggio with a single in the first. Pence singled and Lance Berkman doubled him home to tie the game at 2-2 in the third. The Astros took the lead for good in the fifth on Biggio's double and Pence's homer, his ninth, to make it 4-2.

"We're not playing from behind, and you have the feeling you can score some runs," Garner said.

Pence also scored two runs and had two RBI.

He said he didn't feel comfortable with his swing during batting practice and hit 20-30 balls off the tee in the batting cage before the game.

"I'm always making adjustments," he said. "We definitely feel this is what the offense is capable of doing."

Leading 7-3 entering the ninth, Houston closer Dan Wheeler almost let the game get away. Carlos Ruiz doubled in two runs, leaving runners on second and third with one out.

Garner called on lefthander Trever Miller, who usually faces only lefthanded hitters. Manuel countered with righthanded hitting Chris Coste to pinch hit for Greg Dobbs.

But Miller retired Coste on a ground to third, the runners holding, and ended the game by getting Jimmy Rollins to fly out to Pence in deep center.

"We needed him to get it done," Garner said of Miller. "(Wheeler) wasn't getting the ball where he needed to get it, plain and simple."

"I think I showed (Garner) last year I could get righties out," Miller said. "Early this year I wasn't doing a very good job of that. Usually (Wheeler) does get it done. I stay in the ball game until the last out and, hopefully, they shoot off the fireworks."

Philadelphia hurt Williams with home runs, Pat Burrell hitting his ninth in the third inning and Shane Victorino his 10th in the sixth. Williams has given 19 homers this season, tying Philadelphia's Cole Hamels for most in the National League.