Houston @ Tampa Bay preview
George M. Steinbrenner Field
Last Meeting ( May 20, 2025 ) Houston 2, Tampa Bay 3
Houston Astros right-hander Hunter Brown did everything but win in his most recent outing.
Fresh off a career-high eight-inning performance, Brown will look to send the Astros to a series victory on Wednesday afternoon when they play the rubber match of their three-game set against the host Tampa Bay Rays.
Last Thursday, Brown (6-2, 1.43 ERA) allowed his first homer in 50 2/3 innings dating to his first start of the season. The lone blemish proved costly for Brown, who retired the first 12 batters he faced and yielded just that earned run on three hits with nine strikeouts in a 1-0 loss to the Texas Rangers.
"I generally feel pretty good about my stuff every time I take the hill, and just kind of being efficient," Brown said following his eighth quality start. "I was getting ahead of guys. I thought I was able to land all my stuff. But you know, I just didn't pitch well enough to get that W."
Brown, 26, has a 2-0 record with a 1.06 ERA in four career appearances (two starts) against Tampa Bay.
The Astros captured their fifth win in seven outings with a 4-3 victory in the series opener on Monday. Houston, however, squandered a two-run lead in Tuesday's 3-2 setback after permitting a two-run single in the eighth by Jonathan Aranda and a sacrifice fly in the ninth by Taylor Walls.
The late uprising allowed Tampa Bay to improve to 12-18 at George M. Steinbrenner Field, where it had lost 13 of its previous 16 games.
The Rays will look to ride their modest momentum into Wednesday's contest when they send right-hander Taj Bradley (3-3, 4.80 ERA) to the mound.
Bradley fell to 1-3 in his past six starts after permitting five runs on six hits in four innings of a 9-4 setback to the Miami Marlins on Friday. His streak of working at least five innings over 10 straight starts, dating to last season, ended with that effort.
"I just didn't attack the zone at all," Bradley said, per the Tampa Bay Times. "Threw too many off-speeds for balls that were taken out of (my) hand and just didn't make better pitches."
Bradley, 24, is 1-2 with a 9.95 ERA in three career starts against Houston. He has surrendered five homers in 12 2/3 innings versus the Astros.
Speaking of homers, Houston's Isaac Paredes hit his team-leading eighth of the season against his former team and fourth in his past eight games on Tuesday. Paredes played in parts of three seasons with Tampa Bay before being traded to the Chicago Cubs before the trade deadline last year.
Jake Meyers, who launched a go-ahead homer in the series opener, had an RBI double to open the scoring in the second inning on Tuesday. He has two hits in each game this series and seven to go with four runs during his past five contests overall.
Jose Altuve showed signs of breaking out of a slump by joining Meyers and Victor Caratini with two hits on Tuesday. Altuve was 1-for-22 in the previous six games.
--Field Level Media