"A victory would have made too much sense for the Marlins on Tuesday. The Houston Astros hadn't won at home this season and starting pitcher Brett Myers had mustered only one victory from his 10 previous starts against the Marlins.

In the end, simple logic didn't hold up.

With their 7-5 setback to the last-place Astros at Minute Maid Park, the Marlins continued their habit of dropping series openers. The Marlins have lost the opening game in each of their five series, but are 8-1 in all of their other games.

``I guess that's one of those things you can't explain,'' said Marlins starter Chris Volstad.

Said first baseman Jorge Cantu, who extended the longest hitting streak by a Marlins player since 2002 by hitting safely in his 18th consecutive game: ``That would take a genius to figure that out.''

Kaz Matsui came off the bench to drive in the go-ahead run with a safety squeeze bunt in the eighth, Jason Michaels blasted a two-run home run for good measure, and former Marlins reliever Matt Lindstrom rubbed salt in the wound by working the ninth for his third save.

That's how it all erupted on the Marlins and reliever Tim Wood, who gave up the tying run in the seventh and go-ahead runs in the eighth.

``We were trying to go Wood in the seventh and, if we had the lead, go with the Hopper [Burke Badenhop] in the eighth and then Leo [Nuñez) in the ninth,'' said manager Fredi Gonzalez in explaining his strategy to stick with Wood, even after Wood gave up hits to the first two batters in the eighth. ``We just can't keep using the Hopper every other day. We're going to run him into the ground.''"