Where: Minute Maid Park, Houston, Texas
Temperature: Indoors
Umpires: Home - Dana DeMuth, 1B - Kerwin Danley, 2B - CB Bucknor, 3B - Doug Eddings
Attendance: 33778
Carl Crawford had four hits and Jeff Niemann pitched seven strong innings to lead the Tampa Bay Rays to a 4-2 win over the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park Saturday night.
Niemann (4-0) allowed four hits and two runs. He walked one and struck out five. Rafael Soriano pitched the ninth for his 12th save of the season.
The Astros opened the scoring in the first on an RBI groundout by Hunter Pence.
The Rays took the lead by scoring two runs in the top of the fourth inning. Dioner Navarro had a two-run double to make it 2-1. Tampa made it 3-1 in the fifth on a run-scoring grounder by Evan Longoria.
The Astros trimmed the deficit to 3-2 in the sixth inning on a solo homer by Lance Berkman.
Tampa Bay made it 4-2 on a bases-loaded walk by Ben Zobrist in the ninth.
| Tampa Bay | Houston | |
| Jeff Niemann | Player | Wandy Rodriguez |
| Win | W/L | Loss |
| 7.0 | IP | 6.0 |
| 5 | Strikeouts | 4 |
| 4 | Hits | 6 |
| 2.57 | ERA | 4.50 |
| Tampa Bay | Houston | |
| Carl Crawford | Player | Lance Berkman |
| 4 | Hits | 2 |
| 0 | RBI | 1 |
| 0 | HR | 1 |
| 5 | TB | 5 |
| .800 | Avg | .667 |