HOUSTON -- St. Louis starter Jaime Garcia entered Saturday night's start 0-3 in five career starts against the Astros.
Make that 0-4 after another major clunker.
Chris Johnson hit his first career grand slam off Garcia, Bud Norris continued his dominance of the Cardinals and the Astros beat St. Louis 8-2 to win a fifth consecutive game for the first time since late 2010.
The victory earned the Astros their second consecutive home series win with a game to spare. The last time the Astros won five straight was Aug. 22 to 26, 2010.
Garcia (2-2) was charged with a season-high six runs on four hits over six innings for the Cardinals, who lost their season-worst third straight.
Garcia walked a season-high four and struck out two for his second loss in as many starts.
"The problem was the walks," said Garcia, whose ERA against the Astros rose to 6.89. "It was a terrible job right there, and I didn't get the job done. They got me. That is the worst thing you can do as a pitcher -- walk guys."
Garcia walked Brian Bogusevic, Carlos Lee and Jed Lowrie to load the bases for Johnson.
Johnson more than made up for a fielding error in the top of the first by taking Garcia deep on an 0-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom half to give the Astros a 4-1 lead.
"You go 40 pitches in the first and throw that many walks up there, more often than not, that's going to come back to get you," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. "He was one pitch away from getting out of that. The 0-2 pitch that really deflated [us]. We came out in the first and scored, but then we get the four thrown right back in our face."
Garcia said the 0-2 pitch to Johnson was supposed to be in the dirt.
"I had the strikes," he said. "I didn't execute the pitches when I needed to."
Matheny said Garcia was out of his rhythm in the first and had trouble finding it.
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