video thumbnail

STL@HOU: Norris fans 12 over six strong innings

The Astros powered their way to an 11-9 victory over the White Sox on Sunday, but they'll still be limping, hacking and coughing their way into San Francisco on Tuesday.

Houston will open a three-game series against the Giants at AT&T Park without injured first baseman Carlos Lee (strained left hamstring), and the club has been dealing with a variety of illnesses over the past few days. The Astros will turn to Bud Norris on Tuesday, hoping he can lead them past left-hander Madison Bumgarner (7-4, 3.26 ERA) and the Giants.

Astros center fielder Jordan Schafer has been out since Friday and had to sit out Sunday after showing up to the clubhouse with pink eye, and third baseman Chris Johnson went 1-for-5 on Sunday after leaving Friday's game early due to nausea.

"It's probably the sicknesses that have been the toughest thing," Astros manager Brad Mills said. "We didn't have a lineup until real late [Sunday] morning. We had to wait to see how CJ was and how [Schafer] was coming in. ... After talking with the trainers, pink eye's pretty contagious. With the sun and pink eye, it's not really a good combination."

It won't get a whole lot easier having to face a tough trio of Giants pitchers at AT&T Park. Bumgarner will take the mound Tuesday, followed by right-hander Matt Cain (7-2, 2.41 ERA) on Wednesday and lefty Barry Zito (5-3, 3.24 ERA) on Thursday.

Bumgarner is coming off a shaky outing Wednesday, in which he allowed a season-high-tying four earned runs in six innings, although he picked up the win against the Padres. He walked four batters, an unusually high total for the young lefty -- considering he had walked only 14 over 74 innings to begin the season.

Bumgarner made two starts against the Astros last year, going 1-1 with a 4.85 ERA. In five home starts this season, the 22-year-old is 4-1 with a 2.50 ERA and 27 strikeouts to just three walks in 36 innings.

Astros: Toney completes deal with KC
• The Astros acquired outfielder D'Andre Toney from the Royals to complete their March 20 trade that sent outfielder Jason Bourgeois and catcher Humberto Quintero to Kansas City.

Toney, who hit .340 with 12 doubles, five triples and five homers in the Rookie-level Arizona League last year, will report to the Astros' Rookie-level affiliate in Greeneville.

• Jose Altuve scored from third on a double steal in the sixth inning Sunday, the Astros' first steal of home since Kazuo Matsui did so on May 19, 2009, against Milwaukee.

Giants: Power outage at AT&T Park
• The Giants have only six home runs in 32 games at home this season, and haven't gone deep in their last 16 games at AT&T Park, the longest such streak at home in the club's San Francisco era. This matches the longest any Major League team has gone without a homer at home since the 1990 Astros went 16 straight homerless games at the Astrodome.

San Francisco has only one home run over its last 21 games at home, with the last one coming off the bat of Gregor Blanco on May 14 against the Rockies.

• Angel Pagan is the first Giants player in the modern era (since 1900) to have hit safely in 47 of 50 games in a single season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Worth noting
• The Astros are 18-14 at home this season but just 8-20 away from Minute Maid Park.

• The Giants are 9-11 this season in the first game of a series, 10-8 in the last game of a series and 6-2 in rubber matches.

MLB.com Comments