The Houston Astros have now won four consecutive series after taking two games in Washington. Let’s go around the bases and recap what happened over the weekend.

First Base: La Piña

First baseman Yuli Gurriel came into the Nationals series with a .198 batting average which had a lot of fans and media members concerned. After having three multi-hit games, the reigning American League Batting Champion put their minds to rest. He went 8-for-12 with two home runs and four RBI.

“I’m not surprised. Water sinks to its own level,” said Astros manager Dusty Baker. “I wasn’t worried about Yuli. He was probably more worried about himself than I was worried about him.”

Second Base: Maldonado Magic

It’s not often that a batter hitting .113 would get any positive media coverage, but you celebrate when the hitter’s average has been under .100 for over a month and a half. Catcher Martin Maldonado used the series against Washington to improve his batting average by .21 points by hitting .272, including a two-run home run in the final game.

Third Base: Hey Siri

Astros hitting coach Alex Cintron deserves his flowers and then some for what he does daily to help the lineup get better. After helping Yuli Gurriel make the necessary adjustments at the plate, he turned his attention to center fielder Jose Siri who was also in a terrible slump.

What Cintron noticed was that Siri’s hand placement was different from when he was tearing the ball off the cover in Triple-A last season. That adjustment helped Siri in the second game of the series as he came up one double short of hitting for the cycle.

Home Plate: The Fixer

After winning 11 games in a row, Houston had their losing streak snapped with a 13-6 loss to the Nationals. For the first time during the streak, something unusual happened. The pitching let them down. Cristian Javier, who had been stellar on the mound, allowed seven earned runs in 3 2/3 innings. Relievers Phil Maton and Blake Taylor gave up six runs in less than three innings.

Going into the final game of the series, the Astros needed to prove that the previous game was a fluke, especially when the pitching staff had five shutouts during the winning streak.

No problem. Houston sent former two-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander to the mound to put everything back in order. He pitched five scoreless innings allowing only two hits in his final inning of work as the Astros got back on the winning track by defeating Washington 8-0.

Verlander has pitched over 19 innings in his last three starts and has had a no-hitter in 11 of those innings while only giving up two runs. He has won all of those starts bringing his record to 5-1.

Houston will now head to Boston to take on the Red Sox in their final road series before heading home for a seven-game homestand.