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Brewers hope to cure road woes in Houston

Aug 11, 2012 - 1:44 PM (Sports Network) - The Brewers can't seem to win on the road of late. Historically, they have also struggled in Houston.

Milwaukee lost its 10th in a row on the road last night by blowing a 3-1 lead as the Astros scored once in the eighth and twice in the ninth to get a rare victory. The 10-game road skid by the Brewers ties for their second-longest in club history, only behind a 17-game slide in 1970.

This weekend's three-game series marks the final time the Brewers will be playing in Houston with the Astros as member of the National League. The two became NL Central rivals in 1998, but since then the Brewers have gone 40-72 in Houston, including 38-61 at Minute Maid Park and 2-11 at the Astrodome.

Marco Estrada hopes to helps the Brewers break their road skid tonight when he makes his 20th appearance and 14th start of the season. The 29-year-old righty has yet to break into the win column this season despite some decent outings. A case in point was last Sunday's contest at St. Louis when he allowed just one run over six frames, but the Brewers lost 3-0.

Estrada is 0-0 with a 3.07 ERA in seven career games (1 start) against the Astros.

Dallas Keuchel's first major league win came in his second start, June 23 against Cleveland. The Houston southpaw hasn't won since, going 0-4 in six starts. He gave up a career-high 12 hits to the Nationals on Monday, but didn't get a decision.

Keuchel was shelled for seven runs on seven hits in four-plus innings of work of a 10-2 loss at Milwaukee on July 31.

Last night, Brian Bogusevic singled home the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning and the Astros rallied for a 4-3 win. Trailing, 3-2, and facing John Axford (4-7), Brett Wallace led off with a walk and pinch-runner Tyler Greene swiped second. Steve Pearce ripped a base hit up the middle to plate Greene with the tying run, and moved to third on a deep fly ball to center by Scott Moore.

With the Brewers infield drawn in, Bogusevic smacked one back up the middle and past a diving Jean Segura at shortstop to score Pearce and give the Astros their first walk-off win of the season.

"When you wait this long for one, it's really fun," Bogusevic said.

Wilton Lopez (4-1) was credited with the win after throwing a perfect frame in the top of the ninth for Houston, which snapped a five-game skid.

Ryan Braun laced an RBI double and Segura added an RBI single for the Brewers, who had their three-game winning streak halted.

"It's hard to lose the last inning or two because you play such a good game, you had good defense," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. "We had a lot of nice things happen."

Mark Rodgers, who made just his fifth career major league start, pitched excellently for Milwaukee despite receiving a no-decision. He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and allowed just one run on three hits with eight strikeouts and two walks over seven innings.

Milwaukee leads the season series, 7-5.