Astros 6, Brewers 3

HOUSTON – Tim Redding pitched three-hit ball over five innings in his return to Houston’s starting rotation, and the Astros beat the Milwaukee Brewers 6-3 Saturday.

Adam Everett and pinch-hitter Jason Lane homered for the Astros, who had three sacrifice flies in the game. Houston improved to 4-5 since Phil Garner replaced Jimy Williams as manager during the All-Star break.

Redding (4-6) was demoted to the bullpen after his start against Texas on June 26. He made four relief appearances for the Astros before making his 15th start of the season and struck out six and walked three.

Darren Oliver made his first appearance for Houston and struck out three in two scoreless innings. Houston acquired Oliver from Florida on Thursday.

Brad Lidge pitched the ninth for his 10th save.

Lane, pinch-hitting for Redding, hit his third homer of the season in a three-run fifth inning. Craig Biggio then singled and went to third on Everett’s double. Biggio scored on a sacrifice fly by Carlos Beltran, and Everett scored Jeff Kent’s sacrifice fly to make it 4-0.

Ben Hendrickson (0-3) gave up four runs – three earned – and seven hits in four innings. He walked one and struck out one.

Everett hit his sixth homer of the season in the seventh to give Houston a 5-0 advantage.

Milwaukee cut the deficit to 5-3 in the eighth behind consecutive homers by Lyle Overbay and pinch-hitter Brady Clark, both off reliever Mike Gallo. Overbay’s homer, his 11th, came after a single by Geoff Jenkins. It was the first back-to-back home runs for the Brewers this season.

Lane added a sacrifice fly in the eighth to make it 6-3.

The Astros took the early lead in the first on an RBI single by Lance Berkman.

Houston loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth but was unable to score when Morgan Ensberg’s groundball forced Berkman at the plate and Raul Chavez hit into a double play.

Notes: Biggio leads all major league leadoff hitters with 15 home runs … The Houston bullpen leads the NL with 309 strikeouts. Lidge struck out two and leads all major league relievers with 88 strikeouts … Milwaukee leads the NL in pinch-hits with 37. … Milwaukee has hit 17 home runs against Houston this season, its most against any team.

AP-ES-07-24-04 2219EDT