Now that we’ve gotten the horrible play on words out of the way, on to the preview! Ah, who am I kidding. This is going to be full of bad plays on words, dick jokes, and general half-assery. Enjoy!
Friday September 24, 6:05pm, FS-H
Saturday September 25, my20
Sunday September 26, FS-H
Probable Pitching Matchups From Astros.com
Friday
Brett Myers (13-7, 2.76) v. James McDonald (4-5, 4.09)
Brett has been a beast all year, sporting an Astros record 31 straight starts of six innings or more.
The Pirates sport a .274 average, but a putrid .316 on base percentage. Andrew McCutchen (6-10), Pedro Alvarez (4-6), and Andy LaRoche (3-3) all hit him well. Everyone else is varying degrees of bad.
McDonald was terrible early in the year, but a 20 inning scoreless streak that was just broken last game has brought his ERA down from the middle fives to the low fours. He struggled through five innings of four walk four hit baseball in his last outing, a win that took 101 pitches to get through.
The Astros are batting a clean 1.000 against McDonald, with Anderson Hernandez and Jason Michaels both having a hit in one appearance.
Saturday
Bud Norris (9-8, 4.85) v. Zach Duke (7-14, 5.68)
Norris has given up two or less runs in his last three starts, and has lasted at least six innings in all three of them. His ERA has come down half a point, and he sports a 3.28 ERA in the month of September.
The Pirates as a team sport a .279 (17-61) average against Bud, but the damage is mostly spread around. Garrett Jones (3-9), Lastings Milledge (3-6), and Ronny Cedeno (3-4) do most of the damage. Everyone else is pretty sub-par.
Zach Duke is… well, lets just face it, he’s pretty awful. His ERA has been skyrocketing this month thanks to two awful outings in a row where he lasted a combined four and a third innings and gave up a whopping twelve runs (eleven of which were earned). His last outing was a lot better, but looks a lot more like the exception than the rule.
The Good Guys post a .280 (21-75) average against Duke, with Pence!!! (4-11), Q (2-5), and Boojwah (3-5) leading the charge.
Sunday
JA Happ (6-2, 2.99) v. Paul Maholm (8-15, 5.25)
JA has been pretty spectacular in recent days. He hasn’t lost in over a month, and despite one bad outing the offense bailed him out of, he’s put up stellar numbers since becoming an Astro in the RoyO trade. That trade is looking more and more like a huge Astros win in my eyes.
JA has absolutely dominated the Pirates, to the tune of a .182 (10-55) average. Only Andrew McCutchen (3-10, 1 homer) has more than one hit against him.
Maholm ERA is almost half a point lower than the start of September. He broke a skid of 8 straight losses or no decisions in a row with a win in his last start, beating the Redbirds while tossing seven innings of two run baseball. He’s been pretty decisively horrible since the start of August, with a few decent games tossed in there for good measure.
Ah, I knew it was coming eventually. The horrible pitcher that the Astros for some reason struggle mightily against. Current Astros bat .233 (44-189) against Paul. Pence (11-35), Q (5-15), and Angel FUCKING Sanchez (3-7) do all the damage against Maholm. Everyone else sucks eggs.
Houston
Nothing new to report here. Arias and Moehler are both out for the year. Bourn is day to day with a tweaked oblique, but then again, aren’t we really all day to day?
Pirates
Holy shit, that’s a long DL list.
Jose Ascanio is probably done for the year with shoulder and hand surgery. And your mom just told you you’d go blind.
Jeff Clement is out for the season with a pulled oblique. Michael Bourn says you’re a pussy, Jeff.
Kevin Hart is out for the year with a torn labrum. Insert torn labia joke here.
Jeff Karstens is out with shoulder soreness. Probably from Dutch Ruddering with Jose up there. He might be available at the end of the season… Which is now.
Lastings Milledge is out for the rest of the year with an oblique strain. Michael Bourn thinks you’re also a pussy, Lastings. Also, your name sucks.
Ross Ohlendorf is out for the year with a right shoulder strain. Man, the fucking Pirates injury reporter is a lazy motherfucker.
Steve Pearce has patella tendonitis, out for the the year.
Donald Veal is out for the year with Tommy John surgery. He’ll come back with a very tender, delicious throwing arm next year I’m sure.
Promotions and Giveaways
Friday Night – Pretty decent looking fleece scarf and gloves. Downside, they have Pirates shit on them.
Saturday Night – A post-game concert from fan favorites, O.A.R. Wait… Aren’t those the motherfuckers that sing that obnoxious song they were using for EVERY baseball team’s promos on Fox Sports? Smithers! Have the Rolling Stones Killed!
Sunday – Fan Appreciation Day. That’s right. The one guy that has come to every home game this year is going to be honored! Well, he would be honored, but the Pirates will be sad to announce that he actually died in his seat back in 2004 and nobody noticed until today since nobody has say within 25 rows of him since the day he died.
Our Interesting Things to… Whatever.
The void is closing in fast for us non-playoff contending fans. It’s going to be a good off season though, since there is more than a little hope on the horizon. That is, there will be hope until Limey posts the Astro Magic Number on Opening Day and they proceed to go 1-161. Surprisingly, the 1 win will happen in Washington, and Das will be in attendance. The Astros will win on a pinch hit home run by Jeff Fulchino in the 22nd inning.
So ends my reign of terror as a Preview Writer for the year. Thanks for reading, and I apologize for not being strosrays.
And lastly, not that it has anything to do with anything, but Fuck the Cubs. Watching them implode ranks about half a point behind watching the Astros win on my BES (Baseball Enjoyability Scale).
Discuss the games in the Gamezone!