Brice Turang produced a sacrifice fly that scored Christian Yelich in the top of the 10th inning, and the Milwaukee Brewers rallied past the Houston Astros 5-4 on Friday in the opener of a three-game interleague series.
Yelich, who opened the 10th at second base, used speed to manufacture the winning run. He made a daring dash to third on a shallow flyout to center fielder Jake Meyers, whose errant throw allowed Yelich to advance. Yelich scored when Turang followed with a flyout to right off Astros reliever Alimber Santa (0-1).
Trevor Megill earned his seventh save with a scoreless 10th. Abner Uribe (3-2) retired pinch-hitter Brice Matthews and Isaac Paredes with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.
The Brewers fashioned a rally in the top of the eighth against Astros reliever Bryan Abreu, whose inability to throw strikes greased the skids to his departure after recording only one out.
Abreu threw nine consecutive balls to begin his outing, issuing four-pitch walks to Jackson Chourio and Turang before getting a called strike with a 1-0 fastball to William Contreras, whose flyout to center field placed runners on the corners for Jake Bauers. Abreu departed before Bauers came to the plate, with Astros closer Bryan King entering to preserve the one-run lead.
However, Bauers delivered a run-scoring groundout to the right side of the infield that tied the game at 4-4. King held the line, but the Brewers had new life after erasing a three-run deficit.
The Astros seized that early advantage behind Cam Smith, whose solo homer with one out in the bottom of the second broke a scoreless tie. Smith drilled an 0-1 cutter from Brewers starter Coleman Crow 419 feet to left-center for his sixth homer. Two innings later, Smith struck again.
After Milwaukee pulled even via a leadoff home run from David Hamilton in the third, Smith keyed a three-run uprising in the fourth with an RBI double to right-center that plated Yordan Alvarez and pushed the Astros to a 2-1 lead. Jake Meyers added a run-scoring double that scored Christian Walker before Nick Allen produced a sacrifice fly to drive in Braden Shewmake.
Crow allowed four runs (two earned) on four hits and two walks with one strikeout over four innings. But the Brewers removed him from the hook with their rally, which started when Chourio crushed a two-run homer to left-center off Astros starter Kai-Wei Teng in the fifth inning.
