Milwaukee Brewers finally fall to Houston Astros - Appleton Post Crescent

MILWAUKEE â€" The Milwaukee Brewers hit three homers. Against the Houston Astros it wasn’t enough.

Ryan Braun, Travis Ishikawa and Corey Hart homered, but the Astros had 14 hits in all on the way to a 7-5 win over the Brewers on Wednesday that stopped an 11-game losing streak against Milwaukee.

"They get a lot of hits. They scrap. They put the ball in play," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. "Sometimes, they may not be driving the ball in the gap but they’re hitting it down the line or hanging in there, fouling off pitches until they get a mistake. They battle. They’re not an easy lineup to get to."

Chris Snyder put the Astros ahead for good at 5-4 with an RBI single in the seventh off Jose Veras (2-1) after Brian Bogusevic doubled and stole third.

The Astros scored four runs â€" three earned â€" on eight hits and four walks in five innings off Milwaukee starter Shaun Marcum.

"He had one real good inning where he looked like himself," Roenicke said of Marcum’s 1-2-3 third inning. "But you could see him frustrated out on the mound. You could see his command wasn’t what it usually was. His ball was up in the zone a lot. He had that one good inning. I thought he had it going and it would roll in to the next inning but it didn’t. Next inning, it was back to the battle again but he kept us in the ball game and certainly gave us a chance to win."

Marcum, who struck out seven, missed most of spring training with a sore right shoulder. He left the bases loaded when Chris Johnson flied out ending the first and when Jed Lowrie flied out ending the fourth.

Wilton Lopez (2-0) pitched a 1-2-3 sixth, and Brett Myers got three outs for his third save. Houston, which hadn’t beaten the Brewers since May 1, had 14 hits and won for the third time in 11 game overall. The Astros avoided a three-game sweep.

Martinez boosted the lead to 7-4 in the eighth with a two-run single off Mike McClendon.

Corey Hart hit a solo homer off David Carpenter in the eighth. Wesley Wright got the last out when he induced an inning-ending flyout by to Cesar Izturis to Bogusevic, who made a sliding catch in right-field foul territory with two on.

David Carpenter buzzed Carlos Gomez in seventh. Gomez ducked out of the way and glared at the pitcher. Brewers starter Shaun Marcum had hit Snyder leading off the second.

Astros starter J.A. Happ allowed four runs and seven hits in five innings with eight strikeouts, which tied his season high.

"It was a tough one," Happ said. "It seemed like both of us out there struggled a little but I really liked the way we battled all game. We had a lot of opportunities and we stayed on them all game. It nice to see us work them the whole game. Good team win."

Ryan Braun hit a two-run homer in the first, then singled in the third and scored on Happ’s wild pitch to tie the game 4-4. Travis Ishikawa, filling in at first for Mat Gamel, had homered leading off the second to cut Milwaukee’s deficit to 4-3.

Gamel missed his second consecutive game with a sore shoulder after barreling into catcher Jason Castro, who also sat out for the second day in a row.