Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Pirates 2
Astros 6
W: Rodriguez (6-10) | L: Lincoln (1-3)
There’s nothing quite like playing the Pirates. It’s like taking a vacation from reality, where you can imagine – if only for a few days – that your Houston Astros are a legitimate baseball team with hopes to contend for it all. Whisked away to a magical time and place, where winning is the expectation rather than the exception, and you can laugh at the misfortune of your opponent, rather than resignedly sighing about your own.
Squeeze your eyes shut tight, and you can picture Home Wandy striking out double digits, hurling a seven inning, one-run gem for the win. You’ll see him pitch with control and poise, holding shit down when the bases do get crowded, and cruising through the rest of his time effortlessly. What’s that? His third win and excellent start in a row? Hahahaha sure thing, friend. Sure thing.
Of course, you’ll imagine some offense, too. You wouldn’t get all crazy… this would be a bit of a vanilla daydream. The guys at the top of the order would get on and make some stuff happen, and the heart of the lineup would drive them in with power. Pretty standard stuff.
You’d probably have Bourn getting on a couple of times, maybe swiping a bag, scoring from first, that kind of thing. Keppinger would just keep hitting. Then you’d get to 3-4-5, and it’s just fucking chaos. Taters and doubles flying all over the place, fistfuls of RBI and hits for everyone, none of the three even strikes out. Somewhere in there, even the new kid and the pitcher manage to get a hit. Just majestic.
The Good Guys win it going away, and put another game of distance between them and the team looking up at their ass. It’s July, your centerfielder’s an All-Star, it’s sunny outside and you are fucking going places. Bask in it, people.
Because sadly, some shitface is inevitably going to come wake your ass up in a couple of days. Until then, though…