Astros pad division lead on Tucker's homer

SAN DIEGO -- There was no better time than Friday night for Kyle Tucker to snap his 21-day homerless streak.

With the ballgame tied with one out in the eighth inning, Tucker pulled a 1-1 fastball from Emilio Pagán and sent it over the right-field wall and out of the reach of a leaping Fernando Tatis Jr. to send the Astros on their way to a 6-3 win over the Padres at Petco Park.

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Tucker’s 23rd homer of the season also helped move the Astros to 5 1/2 games ahead of the A’s in the AL West standings after the A’s lost on a walk-off home run from the Blue Jays’ Marcus Semien.

"I'm glad we came away with a victory,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “I looked to see the scoreboard there, I saw the fact that Toronto had come back and won that game, so we picked up a game today."

Tucker’s homer was aided by long at-bats from Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman earlier in the eighth inning. Altuve worked a 10-pitch at-bat against Pagán that resulted in a popup, and Bregman had a nine-pitch battle that ended with a single to left field.

Baker said the long battles set up Tucker to see a good pitch to hit after Pagán had thrown 33 pitches the inning before.

“That was a couple of great at-bats,” Baker said. “[Pagán's] pitch count was up to 30. He usually has great control and command, but they fought off some tough pitches. They took some tough pitches.”

Baker said Tucker, who has slashed .387/.393/.613 in his last nine games since coming off the 10-day IL, has been an important part of Houston’s lineup.

"He's a hitter,” Baker said. “He's a ballplayer. We needed that and we needed that badly. He's been swinging the bat great since he's been back. He was swinging the bat good before. ... Since he came back, he's been outstanding. We'll take everything that he can give us.”

The Astros, who also received a three-run homer from Carlos Correa in the fourth, had been searching for some answers on offense coming into Friday. They were shut out in back-to-back games against the Mariners and were held scoreless for a total of 19 innings dating back to the eighth inning of Monday’s ballgame in Seattle.

That scoreless streak was brought to an end at 22 innings after Correa connected on a three-run homer with two outs in the fourth.

Tucker said situational hitting with runners on base will be important as the Astros chase down the AL West title.

“That was a big part of why we won tonight,” Tucker said. “When we're getting guys on and squaring balls up, good things happen. The more often we can do that, especially more on through the rest of season, we'll start winning a lot more games.

Prior to Tucker’s blast, Houston was kept in the game by the bullpen.

In the fifth inning, it was Yimi García who got Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado out to strand a runner in scoring position after starter José Urquidy exited following 4 1/3 innings in his first start since June 29.

And perhaps the biggest out came in the seventh. Lefty reliever Blake Taylor struck out Eric Hosmer with the bases loaded to end the inning after Kendall Graveman walked the bases loaded in his two-thirds of an inning.

“Runners inherited is so important coming out of the bullpen that you don't give up your buddy's runs,” Baker said. “Graveman had a tough time finding the plate. We bailed him out, and the other guys bailed each other out. That was a big-time team effort."