Contributed by austro
St Louis at Houston
Minute Maid Park
July 10, 2010
Astros 4 | St. Louis 1
WP: Myers (6-6) SV: Lindstrom (21) LP: Suppan (0-5)
I imagine that Roy Oswalt isn’t the only pitcher people are asking about when they call Ed Wade. Brett Myers once again showed why he could be a very valuable pick-up in the right situation, putting up an 8 IP, 1 ER, 5H, 0 BB, 5 K line. That was his 18th consecutive start of 6+ innings, and it dropped his ERA to 3.41.
The Astros got things started in the 1st. Bourn flied out, but Keppinger followed with a double and Berkman walked. Lee tried to ground into a double play, but the SS was slow delivering the ball to the 2B and Lee was safe at first by a whisker. Pence walked to load the bases, and then Feliz drove in Keppinger and Lee with a single to LF. Q blooped a single on the RF line to drive in Pence and make it 3-0 for the good guys.
The 2nd inning featured a couple of nice defensive plays by the Astros. Jon Jay — playing for Rasmus, who has a tender hamstring — singled, but Q nailed him when he tried to steal second (with a nice tag by Keppinger). And Navarro got the third out on a slow hopper that he had to come in on and throw across his body. In the 3rd inning Feliz made a nice reaction stop on a hard-hit ground ball by Lopez.
In the 4th inning Pujols mashed a one-out triple off the Astros’ bullpen. Pence gave it a good try, climbing the fence to try to get it; he looked like he was there in time, but he miscalculated the spot and the ball bounced off the fence and back into RF. If Pence had bothered to hit the cutoff man they might have thrown Pujols out, but of course, that’s not part of Pence’s game. Holliday drove Pujols in with a tapper to SS to give the Cards their only run and make the score 3-1.
The Astros closed out the scoring in the bottom of the 5th inning when Jeff “You can’t throw that weak-ass shit to me, bitch!” Keppinger went deep to LF off of Suppan, making it 4-1.
And that was all that Myers needed, as he just kept mowing down the Cards. Lindstrom came on and pitched an uneventful 9th inning to wrap things up, although he walked two batters.
The series concludes Sunday afternoon at 1pm.