Berkman, Lee, Feliz help Astros sweep Pirates

April 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

HOUSTON

The Houston Astros have gone from baseball’s last winless team to one of its best.

Lance Berkman hit his first home run, Carlos Lee and Pedro Feliz drove in two runs apiece and the Astros completed a three-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 10-3 victory on Sunday.

The Astros have won eight of 10 games after losing their first eight. A difficult early schedule was a big factor in the rough start — they faced San Francisco, Philadelphia and St. Louis in the first three series.

Houston’s starting pitching has been reliable from the beginning, but the offense is producing now that Berkman is back after missing the first two weeks with a knee injury. The Astros averaged 1.75 runs in their first eight games, and 4.6 in their last 10.

“I think we have as good a team as anybody in the National League right now,” Berkman said. “But you have to be sharp when you play those teams, or you’re going to get beat.

“We weren’t sharp and we got beat. Now, we’re back together, everybody’s here, everybody’s healthy and we’re playing well. We just need to maintain it.”

Brett Myers (1-1) allowed 11 singles and struck out six in six innings and Michael Bourn tied a single-game career high with three steals.

Charlie Morton (0-4) gave up five runs and five hits in three innings for the Pirates, who’ve lost six in a row after a 7-5 start.

Morton has allowed 24 earned runs in 13 1/3 innings this season, but the offense was also misfiring on Sunday. The Pirates had 14 hits and stranded nine runners.

“When you get down big, it emphasizes how tough it is to score runs,” Pittsburgh manager John Russell said. “We did start to swing the bat well, and I hope we can build off that. Now, we need to be able to swing with guys in scoring position.”

Garrett Jones, Ryan Doumit and Andy LaRoche singled in the second inning to give Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead. Myers then fanned Morton for his 1,000th career strikeout.

Myers didn’t think the milestone was a big deal — especially since it came against a pitcher.

“I really wish it was somebody else, but oh well,” Myers said. “It took a lot of guys to get there.”

Berkman led off the Houston half of the second with a homer to left. It was Berkman’s 314th career home run, tying him with Reggie Smith for fifth all-time among switch hitters.

The Pirates have been outscored 55-9 during their six-game skid.