Nelson Cruz usually isn’t the cleanup man for the Texas Rangers. On Saturday against the Houston Astros, he looked like a natural. The native of the Dominican Republic hit a pair of homers to help the Rangers beat their intrastate rivals by a final count of 6-3.

Nelson Cruz - Texas Rangers (Image: Zuma Press)

For the game, Cruz was 2-for-4 with two runs and four RBI. On the season, the 28-year-old outfielder is hitting .285 with 11 homers, 30 RBI and 22 runs. Despite his age, Cruz has never played more than 100 games in a season. In 31 games last season, Cruz hit .330 with seven homers and 26 RBI.

On the mound for the Rangers, Scott Feldman went 6.2 innings to pick up his third win of 2009. He gave up five runs and three earned runs while striking out five and walking two.

The win lifted the Rangers to 25-17. Currently, Texas leads the NL West with a 2.5 game lead over the Los Angeles Angels.

With the loss, the Astros are now 18-23 and in last place in the NL Central.

Albert Pujols is making an early bid to lock up the 2009 National League MVP award. On Saturday, Pujols had two homers and seven RBIs to lead the St. Louis Cardinals over the Houston Astros by a final score of 11-2.

Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals (Image: Newscom)

Pujols’ first homer came in the fifth inning when he hit a grand slam. He then followed that up with a three-run homer in the seventh inning. Through six games, Pujols has a batting average of .429 with three homers and nine RBIs.

Adam Wainwright threw five innings in which he didn’t give up a run to get the win. Joe Thurston and Rick Ankiel each finished with three hits as the Cardinals improved their record to 4-2.

The loss for the Astros dropped their record to 1-4. Roy Oswalt, the team’s ace, dropped to 0-2 following six innings in which he gave up nine hits and six earned runs.

The two teams will play the final game of their series on Sunday at 2:15 PM EST.

We have a new addition to the b5media Sports Channel — Inside the Ballpark with Hunter Pence.
This new blog features major league baseball player Hunter Pence of the Houston Astros. We are very excited about Hunter joining us on the b5media Sports Channel.
Hunter will personally pen a weekly blog post to detail the latest happenings in his life as an Astro. Additionally, this blog will be updated on a daily basis to keep everyone updated on Hunter and the Astros. Hunter is entering his second season for the Astros after completing a very successful rookie year. As a rookie, Hunter hit .322 with 17 homeruns and 69 RBIs. He also collected 30 doubles, nine triples and 11 stolen bases.
Hunter’s first blog post is up today. Check it out at InsidetheBallpark.com.