ARLINGTON -- The Rangers sent 21 batters to the plate against Astros rookie starter Hunter Brown, with 10 of them reaching base on hits. On a day when he didn’t have his best stuff, Brown did his best to limit the damage against one of the best offenses in baseball.

Because of the high amount of traffic on the bases -- and the Rangers fouling off 21 pitches against him -- Brown needed 91 pitches to complete four innings, and he took the loss after giving up three runs while striking out six batters in Texas’ 5-2 win over Houston on Saturday at Globe Life Field.

The loss snapped the Astros’ three-game winning streak and dropped them five games behind the first-place Rangers in the American League West.

“I put some pitches in some good spots,” Brown said. “Whether they fought them off or worked a hit out of it, they just made it a difficult time for me today. I don’t think I was overly mis-executing. It’s kind of difficult to not think [about] how you could have done better when they put up 10 hits on you, you know?”

Brown has a 3.76 ERA in 91 innings in his rookie season and is inching closer to the career-high 130 innings he threw last year with the Astros, both in the regular season and the playoffs, and for most of 2022 at Triple-A Sugar Land.

“I feel really good physically,” Brown said. “I guess in comparison to last year, it was a lot later in the year when I got to this point. Just working with the strength and conditioning staff and my trainer back home just to try and accept a workload like this and stay strong through the season.”

The Astros, who were blanked for seven innings by Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi and didn’t score until Kyle Tucker hit a towering, two-run home run in the ninth inning, continue to test their starting pitching depth. They will send their fourth consecutive rookie starting pitcher to the mound Sunday whenShawn Dubin makes his first Major League start.

Dubin follows J.P. France (Thursday in St. Louis), Ronel Blanco (Friday against the Rangers) and Brown, who is the only one of the four who started the regular season in the rotation. Dubin is taking the spot of veteran left-hander Framber Valdez, who was scratched from Sunday’s game because of a sore right ankle.

“It was my last outing at home against the Mets [on June 20],” Valdez said. “I twisted it there and just continued pitching, maybe because of the game and the adrenaline there. When pitching in St. Louis [on Tuesday], I felt it a little bit more there and felt it more tender, and I figured it was better to skip a start than to regret it the rest of the season.”

Valdez said he should be able to make one more start before the All-Star break, likely Thursday or Friday at home against the Mariners. The Astros can ill-afford another long-term injury to their starting rotation, considering they’ve lost three starting pitchers to injuries this year -- Lance McCullers Jr. (right forearm surgery), Luis Garcia (Tommy John surgery) and José Urquidy (right shoulder discomfort).

Dubin was called up from Triple-A Sugar Land on June 18 and threw three innings in relief in his Major League debut the following day. The 27-year-old didn’t pitch again until Wednesday, when he threw two innings in relief and gave up one run on two hits while striking out four batters. 

Dubin admitted his nerves were “through the roof” for his Major League debut, but he is in a much better frame of mind with a couple of games under his belt. He’ll need to be at his best against a Rangers lineup that features four All-Star starters in order to help an Astros rotation that’s pushing the limits of its depth.

“I’ve had a good amount of time facing some of these hitters in [Texas' Triple-A affiliate] Round Rock,” he said. “I’ve had success. Obviously, they got a couple of different pieces, but I’m excited for it and ready for the challenge.”