Astros Road Woes Continue

The second half is underway and the Astros find themselves flat on their face. After a promising 7-4 home stand before the All-Star break, the Astros were hoping for some form of hope coming out of the gate. Instead, the lowly Washington Nationals sent the Astros to their fourth consecutive loss and 15 games under .500.

Astros starter Woody Williams (4-11) was hanging onto a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the sixth inning when he left a meatball over the plate to Nationals All-Star Dimitri Young who drilled it for a three-run home run. That's all the Nationals would need on this night as the their bullpen and closer Chad Cordero finished off the Astros for the 4-3 win.

Trailing 1-0 into sixth inning, Carlos Lee got the Astros on the board on a base hit scoring Hunter Pence and advancing Lance Berkman to the third. Mark Loretta would put the Houston team ahead 2-1 on a sacrifice fly scoring Berkman. Going into the eight inning, Astros All-Star Carlos Lee would hit his 17th home run to cut the Nationals lead to 4-3. The Astros send Chris Sampson (6-6, 4.25) against former Astro Tim Redding (1-1, 4.09) tonight at RFK Stadium.