HOUSTON (AP) — Jeremy Peña had a career-high four RBIs, Yainer Díaz and José Abreu added three apiece and the Houston Astros had their highest-scoring game of the season in a 17-4 rout of the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday night.
Díaz put Houston up early with a two-run shot in the second. Peña, who had two hits, made it 5-0 with a bases-loaded double in the fourth.
Chas McCormick hit a two-run triple in Houston’s three-run fifth and Abreu made it 11-0 with his 10th homer of the season in the sixth to help the Astros bounce back after a 4-3 loss in the series opener Friday.
“We know that we’re able to have games like this,” Díaz said in Spanish through a translator. “It was definitely fun for a lot of us and we enjoyed it.”
The Astros got eight hits and five RBIs from the bottom three batters in their lineup Saturday.
“That’s why you kind of stagger your lineup to have some balance all the way through versus stacking it with guys that are swinging well,” manager Dusty Baker said. “The bottom of the lineup came through tonight.”
Isaac Paredes hit a two-run homer in the seventh and a solo shot in the ninth and Wander Franco added a home run in the eighth for the Rays, but it wasn’t nearly enough as they fell to 6-16 this month.
With the game out of hand, manager Kevin Cash brought in catcher René Pinto for his first career pitching appearance to start the seventh inning.
“I wanted René to pitch both innings, but the way that inning unfolded probably we need to stop it right there,” Cash said. “Not how we drew it up, but we were trying to avoid both innings of no pitcher, but we might have been here all night if we sent him back out there.”
