HOUSTON â" The Houston Astros had a scary moment in an otherwise ordinary loss.
Reliever Mickey Storey was hit on the side of the face by Dave Sappeltâs line drive in the top of the eighth inning. The liner appeared to have glanced off Storeyâs hand, shoulder and head.
Storey fell to a knee and grabbed his jaw as Astros personnel rushed to check on him. He was down for several minutes before walking into the Astros dugout. Houston manager Tony DeFrancesco said Storey had bruises on his hand and jaw.
âThe best thing I can take from this is that it didnât hit somewhere worse,â Storey said. âInitially, it was shock and hurt, but I think Iâll be all right. Hopefully, Iâll be back out there soon.â
DeFrancesco said Storeyâs status is day-to-day.
âWe were very lucky,â DeFrancesco said. âAfter what happened with (Aâs pitcher Brandon) McCarthy in Oakland, itâs very sensitive right now and itâs a scary thing. I know itâs part of the game, but you donât want to see anybody get hurt, and you feel bad for the kid.â
McCarthy was hit in the head and needed surgery to fix and epidural hemorrhage, brain bruise and skull fracture after being hit by a line drive Sept. 5. He was released from the hospital on Tuesday.
Storey said he was fortunate that the liner didnât directly strike him in the head.
âI saw it coming, and I donât know if I was trying to catch it or defend my face, but I felt it hit,â Storey said. âI went to get the ball then kind of blacked out and felt a lot of ringing.â
Sappelt later offered his sympathy.
âI was in one of those, âI donât know what to do,â moments,â said Sappelt, who played against Storey in Triple-A. âI felt bad. I hope heâs all right.â
It was a scary moment in a game that the Cubs controlled from start to finish.
Alfonso Soriano finished a triple shy of the cycle and drove in two runs and Travis Wood allowed one run in 7 2-3 innings.
Wood (6-11) gave up four hits and struck out six for his second straight win. Wood has allowed only one run in his last two starts, spanning 13 2-3 innings.
Wood walked one and did not allow a hit through the first four innings.
âHe kind of dominated for a while and threw a lot of off-speed that was cutting in on our hitters, and we couldnât do anything,â DeFrancesco said.
Fernando Abad (0-4) gave up a run on four hits in 3 1_3 innings with two strikeouts and three walks. In his four starts this season, Abad has not lasted longer than 4 1_3 innings.
âThat was enough,â DeFrancesco said. âIf Abad was throwing strikes early, he might have had a chance of getting out of it, but at that point, I felt it was time to move on.â
Welington Castro gave the Cubs a 1-0 lead in the first with a two-out single.
Soriano hit his 29th home run of the year off Chuckie Fick in the fifth and extended the lead to 3-0 in the seventh with an RBI single off Fernando Rodriguez down the left field line.
Anthony Recker upped Chicagoâs lead to 4-0 in the eighth with a double to the right field gap off Jose Valdez.
Houston cut the lead to 4-1 in the eighth on a run-scoring single by Fernando Martinez off Shawn Camp, scoring Brandon Barnes, who had chased Wood with a two-out double. Jose Altuve then reached on a single and Jed Lowrie walked to load the bases, but Camp struck out J.D. Martinez to end the threat.
Chicago made it 5-1 in the ninth as pinch runner Tony Campana stole third and scored on Chris Snyderâs high throw.
Justin Maxwell singled to lead off the fifth for Houstonâs first hit, but he was doubled off first after Soriano made a leaping grab on Matt Dominguezâs shot at the wall and fired it in to get Maxwell at first.
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