HOUSTON — As he spoke about the significance of playing back home in Houston at the ballpark he saw big league games in growing up, Masyn Winn recalled what he did in 2024 during his first trip to face the Astros as the Cardinals’ shortstop.

“I homered into the Crawford Boxes. That was great. I want to say it was game two. Hopefully I can repeat that tonight,” Winn said before taking the field Saturday.

His hopes came true in the third inning. With family and friends in attendance for a second consecutive night, Winn belted a 2-0 sinker from Astros starter Lance McCullers Jr. into the left-field Crawford Boxes on Saturday at Daikin Park. The homer traveled 373 feet and, like Winn’s two-run single in the third inning Friday night, padded a Cardinals lead they would not give up.

On Saturday, the Cardinals totaled three home runs with blasts coming from Winn, Jose Fermin and Alec Burleson to help power them to a 7-5 win over Houston that began with a two-run single from Nolan Gorman in the first inning.

The power show backed a five-inning, one-run start from right-hander Andre Pallante and was enough of a cushion for the Cardinals (12-9) to stave off the Astros' threat of a comeback in the ninth.

Following a run allowed by Matt Svanson in the eighth and three runs allowed on a three-run homer by George Soriano in the ninth, closer Riley O'Brien recorded a two-out save. O'Brien had to retire Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez to secure his sixth save of the year.

Of the three homers they received, only Winn’s came against McCullers, who lasted five innings. Fermin’s solo shot in the sixth inning and Burleson’s in the seventh came against lefty Colton Gordon.

Winn’s multi-RBI game marked the first time in his career that he produced multi-RBI performances in consecutive games. For Gorman, who hit a three-run homer on Friday, the two runs he pushed across Saturday gave him multiple RBIs in consecutive games for the first time since June 2 to June 3 during the 2024 season.

Making McCullers work

Beginning with JJ Wetherholt’s leadoff plate appearance that ended with a hit by pitch on the fifth pitch the rookie saw to begin the game, the Cardinals grinded out trips to the plate against the Astros’ righty.

The Cardinals had three runners reach base in the first inning and capitalized on the chance with a two-run single from Gorman. They drew two walks in the second to get McCullers’ pitch count to 53 by the end of two innings, which stirred action in the Astros’ bullpen.

Against the former All-Star starter, Cardinals hitters totaled four hits, four runs and drew four walks. McCullers left the game with 91 pitches.

Grinding to get the homer

The solo homer Fermin deposited into the left-field Crawford Boxes in the sixth inning represented the second of his career. To get it, he had to work a 10-pitch at-bat.

Put in a 1-2 count after Gordon landed a fastball for a strike and got a whiff on a change-up, Fermin laid off the next two pitches he was offered to make the count full. He followed the pair of takes by fouling off three consecutive fastballs and one change-up that the lefty placed low and away.

Offered a seventh fastball from Gordon, Fermin chased the pitch above the strike zone and sent it 370 feet.

Hit hard by Alvarez

Early inning encounters with Alvarez, the Astros’ leading slugger, were no easy task for Pallante.

In his first two encounters with the lefty, Pallante allowed a solo homer in the first inning that traveled 421 feet and put Alvarez past Jordan Walker and into sole possession of the lead across the majors with nine.

Pallante began his sequence in the third inning vs. Alvarez by throwing him a sinker, a splitter and a knuckle curve. The lefty laid off each to work the count to 2-1, then smoked a sinker to center field with a 117.8 mph exit velocity. Pallante did not retire Alvarez until he faced him for a third time. That time, Pallante got Alvarez to fly out to left field.

Changing results

Troubled by off-speed pitches to begin this season, Gorman got just enough of a 1-2 change-up McCullers offered him in the first inning to give the Cardinals a lead.

Gorman pulled a change-up that the righty placed away and snuck it down the first base line and out of reach from a diving Christian Walker. The line drive single scored Wetherholt and Ivan Herrera.

Gorman entered Saturday’s game batting .207 on the season after a 1 for 4 game Friday that included three strikeouts and a late three-run homer. He hit .071 on off-speed pitches and had a 51.4% whiff rate when offering at them through his first 70 plate appearances, per Statcast. The single on the change-up from McCullers was just his second hit on an off-speed pitch this year.

Svanson gets into trouble and out of it

Called from the bullpen to pitch the eighth inning with the Cardinals leading 7-1, Matt Svanson loaded the bases with three consecutive walks to begin his outing. A ground-ball double play and a sweeper that froze Isaac Paredes helped him limit the damage to one run.

Svanson began his relief appearance by walking Altuve on six pitches, Alvarez on five pitches and Carlos Correa on five. He landed a called strike just three times on his first 16 pitches.

The troubling command loaded the bases for Christian Walker, but the knee-high cutter Svanson threw to him induced a bouncing grounder to second base that turned into a double play.

In the at-bat that followed, Svanson got a whiff on his sinker vs. Paredes and got him to foul off a second sinker for strike two. Strike three came on a sweeper that caught the outer half of the plate and froze Houston’s designated hitter.

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