Giants 4, Astros 2
W: Matt Cain (2-3) | L: Brandon Backe (2-5) | S: Brian Wilson (12)
After winning the first four games of the current west coast visit, the Astros managed to bumble their way to a 4-2 defeat at the hands of the Giants of San Francisco at The Big Phone.
Top of the first, the Astros threatened with a Kaz Matsui double and an intentional walk to Lance Berkman, but Carlos Lee’s towering deep fly to center was caught on the warning track, just missing a three-run bomb. In the bottom half, however, the Giants didn’t miss. Starter Brandon Backe allowed a leadoff triple to speedy Fred Lewis, then the Keystone Astros act began. A high short fly to center by Omar Vizquel dropped in front of Michael Bourn, who caught the ball on a bounce and hung his head briefly, having no play on Lewis scoring from third. Meanwhile, Vizquel had taken a large turn rounding first, and noticing Bourn had looked away, darted for second base in a daring move that caught Bourn napping. The eventual throw bounced several times on it’s short journey to avoid the glove of Miguel Tejada allowing Vizquel to slide in safely. Let’s call this one Bourn’s Boner, which was ruled a double in the official scoring, but was an obvious mental error and a terrible throw. Vizquel then scored on a double by Randy Winn. So the first three batters all had extra base hits. Next up was the cleanup hitter for the Giants, the eldest of the squatting Molina brothers, Bengie, who drove a ball in the gap in deep right center. This did not look good, however Hunter Pence raced over and nabbed it with a good running catch. Winn tagged and cruised to third easily. Next up was… wait… it doesn’t fuckin’ matter, because catcher JR Towles let a cutter from Backe skip off his glove for a passed ball as Winn scored. Let’s call this one the Towles Muff. Backe managed to retire the side to avert further damage, but he trailed 3-0 after the opening frame.
The good guys threatened again in the second after a solid two out single by Towles (breaking an 0-20 skid) and a walk to Backe, however Bourn popped up to squash any hope. Backe settled in and retired the Gints 1-2-3 in the bottom half.
With one out in the third, Miguel Tejada slammed a Matt Cain offering into the right field corner, but managed only a single as the rightfielder Winn was shading him that way and got to the ball quickly. Red-Hot Lance Berkman then knocked a hard grounder to first, but youngster John Bowker wanted no part of it and it continued into right field, allowing Tejada to race to third. It was ruled a single. Speculation is that Music Man paid off the official scorer, trying to atone for his gushing praise from last night’s game. Lee came through with a solid single to left to plate the Astros first run, but Geoff Blum and Pence were retired to end the threat.
The teams traded zeros for the next couple of innings, right up until Cain led off the bottom of the fifth with a long solo blast in the left field stands. 4-1 Giants and a continuation of a season long trend of opposing pitchers doing major damage with the wood.
Cain breezed through several more frames until Lee went Kabong into left field in the eighth for a solo shot to inch closer, 4-2. What followed was the scare of the game in the bottom half. Molina popped a short fly to right in no mans land. Pence was racing in and Kaz was racing out. They collided as the ball dropped just out of Matsui’s reach. Pence hobbled up, retrieved the ball, and fired to second before collapsing, holding the lead footed catcher to a single. Kaz remained on the grass. After a brief delay, both players shook it off and remained in the game. Whew. Communication, guys.
The Astros went down meekly in the ninth, losing for only the sixth time in the last twenty one games.
Tonight matches Brian Moehler (1-0, 4.26) against young lefty Pat Misch (0-0, 5.26) at 9:15.