HOUSTON — Pavin Smith homered in first three at-bats for his first multi-home run game and drove in a career-high eight runs, helping the Arizona Diamondbacks rout the Houston Astros 12-6 on Sunday night to end a three-game losing streak.
Smith became the second Diamondback with a three-homer game this season, with Eugenio Suárez doing it against Washington on July 30. J.D. Martinez set the Arizona record with four home runs at Los Angeles on Sept. 4, 2017.
''It was a great day for Pavin,'' Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. ''Pavin can hit. We always feel comfortable with his at-bats, his ability to come in the lineup after not playing for a couple of days and be able to barrel up the baseball.''
Smith fell an RBI shy of the Arizona record set by Erubiel Durazo in 2002. Chris Iannetta also had eight RBIs for the Diamondbacks in a 2017 game. Smith's previous high was six.
Arizona — which scored at least 10 runs for a majors-best 18th time — pulled within a half-game of San Diego for the National League's first wild card and increased its lead over New York and Atlanta to 1 1/2 games. Houston leads Seattle by 4 1/2 games in the AL West.
Smith's first home run of the night followed back-to-back singles to start the second inning and struck the foul pole in right. Arizona had increased the lead to 4-0 when Smith came up with the bases loaded in the third and sent a 2-2 fastball from Justin Verlander (3-6) into the Crawford Boxes for the third career grand slam.
''Just one of those nights where you're in a zone,'' Smith said. ''Obviously, Justin's a great pitcher. I faced him before, and he's got great stuff, so once I was able to put a good swing the first at-bat it gave me confidence the rest of the game.''
Verlander allowed eight runs on eight hits over three innings and failed to record a strikeout for just the third time in 381 career regular-season starts. He has a 9.68 ERA in four starts since returning from the injured list.
