Yanks beat Astros, win the series.

Coming off a sweep of the Blue Jays, everybody but the Astros themselve thought it would be an easy series for the Yankees. Well, it wasn't. The Astros made it more difficult than most people thought as Houston outscored the Yankees 17-14 in three games.

"That's a good ballclub over there," Astros manager Bo Porter said. "They won the game, but at the same time, we played the game the way it's supposed to be played and put ourselves in position to have the opportunity to win, as well."

"They had some pretty good pitching out there in the late innings, so it's not as easy as it looks," Overbay said.

Making his 1st start of the season on Wednesday night, David Phelps was cruising through the first 3 innings on 34 pitches before he ran into trouble in the 4th, blowing a 4-0 Yankees lead to turn his night into something not so special.

The Yankees jumped out to their 4-0 lead quickly. Ichiro tripled to start the bottom of the 1st then was driven in but Jayson Nix a batter later. The Yankees coming into the game were 8-0 when scoring 1st and the Astros were 0-13 when the opposing team scored 1st.

Astros starter Erik Berdard walked the bases loaded to start the 2nd inning but the Yankees were only able to score 1 run on a Chris Stewart sac-fly.

Robinson Cano added a solo homerun in the 3rd inning. It was Cano's 8th homer of the season and it pushed the Yankees lead to 3-0. A couple batters later Ben Francisco, who had been struggling badly coming in, hit his 1st long ball of the season into the seats in left. Another solo shot, 4-0 Yankees.

That's were Phelps fell off the wagon. After striking out the leadoff hitter, the next 3 Astros collected hits. Including Carlos Pena who singled home Jose Altuve for the 1st run. Phelps hit back to back hitters with the bases loaded to bring home the 2nd run.

Phelps had begun to lose his control and fell for his pitches in the 4th inning. Brandon Barnes beat out a double play ball with the bases loaded and Matt Dominguez singled home 1 more run the put the Astros right back into the game, all tied at 4-4.

After the Astros batted around in the 4th inning, they were able to send 5 more hitters to the plate in the 5th but were unable to score off Phelps' loss of control. Fernando Martinez singled to lead off the 6th but Phelps was able to retire the next 2 hitters before being pulled.

Phelps went 5.2 innings, allowing 4 runs on 8 hits, while walking only 1, and striking out 5 on 87 pitches in his 1st start of the season.

"I threw all right. I'm really happy we won that game," Phelps said. "The fourth inning killed all the momentum we built up. I've got to do better than that."

Phelps was mad with himself after the game because he knew that he had a good chance to gain a legitimate shot at becoming the Yankees permanent 5th starter.

"It's one of the reason I'm really frustrated today, because I felt like I could have just really grabbed the reins and taken care of things," Phelps said. "But its baseball. Stuff happens, and you've just got to do better next time."

The Yankees took the lead in 6th inning when Ichiro grounded into a double play, Lyle Overbay made a heads up play by getting caught in a rundown which allowed Nunez to score from 3rd, before the out was made.

"As soon as he hit it, I knew it was soft enough to where I wasn't going to be able to get by him, so I just stopped and waited," Overbay said. "It was kind of a no-brainer."

Phelps handed to ball to the Yankees bullpen and it shined bright as it has all season. Boone Logan retired all four hitters he faced. David Robertson followed with a 1-2-3 8th. And Mariano picked up his 11th save of the season as the Yankees went on to win 5-4.

The Yankees will get an off day on Thursday before welcoming the Athletics to town on Friday for a 3-game set to finish off the homestand.

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