TORONTO - Kyle Drabek's outing against the Houston Astros on Sunday will be listed as a quality start on the game notes the next time he pitches.

In his mind, it was not. "Not for me," the Toronto Blue Jays right-hander said after holding the Astros to three runs in six innings, the accepted standard for a quality start.

It wasn't good enough. Drabek (3-3) took the loss and the Astros took the rubber match of the three-game interleague series with a 3-2 victory.

"I didn't accomplish much that I want," Drabek said. "I still walked people and I'd get ahead (in the count) and give it right back. That's not quality right there. That's just getting back to being 3-2 with every hitter and having to be careful with what I do. Most time it's either going to be a walk or I'm going to lay one up there and that's what I'm trying to get rid of."

Left-hander Wandy Rodriguez (3-3) allowed two runs in six innings to gain the victory and Mark Melancon pitched 1 2/3 innings, leaving the bases loaded in the ninth, to earn his third save of the season and his second of the series.

The difference was a two-run homer by Hunter Pence in the fifth inning on a Drabek cutter, off-setting Blue Jays homers by Juan Rivera and J.P. Arencibia.

"You know what," Drabek said. "It's 1-1 and that happened with the two-run homer and then walking out of there in a losing situation, that is just nothing that I want."

Drabek allowed eight hits, walked three and struck out six and needed 104 pitches to get through six innings.

Arencibia gave Drabek more credit. "He's not going to go out there and throw a no-hitter every time," the catcher said. "He's got to understand that. He gave us a quality start. He gave us an opportunity to win. I thought he did a good job."

Drabek, 23, was pitching against his home-town team but he said that he did not think about it during the game. As a pitcher, he continues to be a work in progress who shows considerable promise with excellent stuff.

"He went six innings and gave up three runs," manager John Farrell said. "He kept away from a big inning. Granted the two-run homer was a cutter in the middle of the plate to Pence. But he gave us every opportunity to stay in this game and gave us an opportunity to win."

The Blue Jays (23-23) may lament the fact that they were 1-for-8 hitting with runners in scoring position but the Astros (17-30) were 1-for-12.

"We created opportunities," Farrell said. "We created opportunities for the opposition. Tough series. You can say all you want, a swing or a pitch away from sweeping the series, the fact remains it is what it is."

The Blue Jays had a glimmer of hope on Yunel Escobar's two-out infield single in the ninth. Mike McCoy ran for him, Corey Patterson followed with a double to right and Jose Bautista was walked intentionally.

But Aaron Hill grounded out to end the game on a cutter.

"We weren't going to get beat on a pitch that was his pitch," Melancon said. "We were going to go right after him but be smart with what we threw."

Houston used singles by Michael Bourn, Angel Sanchez and Brett Wallace to score a run in the third.

Wallace's two-out single on a full count scored the run.

Wallace and Drabek both came to Toronto with catcher Travis d'Arnaud in December of 2009 when pitching ace Roy Halladay was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Blue Jays actually got outfielder Michael Taylor from the Phillies as the third player in the deal but flipped him to the Oakland Athletics for Wallace. Last July, Wallace was traded to Houston for centre-fielder prospect Anthony Gose.

Rivera tied the game with his two-out homer, his fourth, in the bottom of the third.

The Astros regained the lead in the fifth when Pence followed Sanchez's single with his sixth homer of the season, a drive to left on a 1-0 cutter.

"He was painting at 95 pretty good and locating," Pence said. "He had a decent curveball that was tough to lay off of."

Arencibia led off the bottom of the sixth with his eighth homer of the season on a first-pitch fastball to cut Houston's lead to one.

Wilton Lopez replaced Rodriguez in the seventh and walked his first batter, Escobar. But Patterson fouled out to the catcher and Bautista hit a hard grounder to third baseman Chris Johnson who started the inning-ending double play.

Lopez walked Rivera with one out in the eighth and was replaced by Melancon when the count reached 2-1 on Arencibia, who struck out as did Rajai Davis to end the inning.

"When they were coming in people were saying worst record in baseball," Arencibia said. "That's not the way it works. You've got to go out there and take every opponent seriously. They did a good job pitching and had some timely hitting."