Friday, June 20th, 2008
Tropicana Field – St. Petersburg, FL
Astros 4
Rays 3
W:Oswalt (6-7) | L: Garza (5-4) | S: Valverde (17)
Alyson’s account
AP via Yahoo!
GZ
The banging sound coming from the back of the 1969 Buick Skylark got louder as authorities approached. They had received a tip that there may be someone trapped in the trunk of the vehicle parked in a vacant office park about half a mile from Tropicana Field. Their fears confirmed, police picked the trunk’s lock and to their surprise, they found someone who had been missing since mid-April.
As they helped Houston Astros’ ace, Roy Oswalt out of the cramped, dank trunk, they asked him who he thought may have done this to him. “‘Gerald’ or ‘Gerry’ or someone’r’other. Where’s the Trop?”
The 8-game losing streak hasn’t told the whole story of the funk that surrounds the Astros at this point of the season. It only makes it smell worse. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important that the streak be snapped ASAP and coming in to Tropicana Field for 3 games with the white-hot Rays, Roy saw to it that it would be.
Oswalt scattered 7 hits, 2 walks and just 2 runs over 7.2, striking out 8. He stumbled a bit out of the gate with a run in the first on 3 straight hits but settled down into the Roy we’ve known. His fastball had pop and his breaking balls we’re spot on as the Rays stuggled to get his timing down. A few of the times they did, stellar defense backed him up, notably, Erstad playing in left for DH Kabong, and a beautiful backhanded, over-the-shoulder, back-to-the-play, at-the-wall, leaping catch to end the 2nd inning.
The offense again, jumped on opponants pitching in the first inning. With 2 outs, Miggy singled and Puma walked. Next batter El Kabong! doubled into the gap in left center that scored both runners. Upton appeared to take his time with the play, making his throw to the cutoff way too late to catch Puma.
In the top of the 5th, with 1 out and Bourn on 1st, Kaz hit a towering fly over CF Upton’s head, who played it well off the wall and fired in a laser to the cut who burned it home high, but still too late to catch Mach Bourn. My friend next to me says, “That was closer than it should have been with Bourn running.” I says, “A mere mortal would have been stopped at third with the catcher holding the ball.”
Brocail cleaned up a bit of Roy’s tiring 8th inning and got out of it with just 1 run to keep a cushion for Valverde, who needed it. Again. He actually pitched well, despite giving up a one-out, hanging splitter to Navarro for a solo shot that had my heart sinking. But he settled down and got an easy grounder to Ty and a strike out to end it.
Finally, one of the drooling monkeys has been knocked off the Astros’ back. Can they keep it up? Wandy @ Edwin Jackson tonight @ 5:10 CDT. No TV. I’ll try to get a few pics of the Rainbow guts for you guys.