File this under “Haven’t we’ve seen this before?”. Aaron “the beast” Harang dominated the Houston nine on this night to the tune of four hits, one run and a whole bunch of weak swings. In the words of Jimmy D “He just throws a mystery ball. Nothing special, you just don’t seem to square it.” On the other side, J. Happ(y) was just as masterful against the San Diego Padres but alas late in the game they got to him with bleeders and seeing eye hits and one big blast double to end the night for the young, tall lefty. Before you knew it, a 1-1 game became a 4-1 lead for the Friars and with the bullpen they throw at teams, that typically means game over.
But credit the blood n’ mud, they kept fighting and in the end they had their chances. The high drama was realized when Jason Michaels stepped into the box to bat against the rotund Padre closer Heath Bell. Seems history tells us that JMike is kryptonite to Bell’s superman saver skills. This was going to be fun, you may even see Bell sweat a few lbs off in the process. Eeewww. Any way, with a man on first, two outs and Houston in dire need of a blast of their own to tie the game at minimum or keep the game going, in stepped JMike to hit. I’m guessing JMike sees the ball well from Bell, because he spit on pitches he didn’t want to swing at, including a hanging curveball and then swung hard at an outside fastball. It looked good coming off his bat, but Bell was able to put the pitch where he wanted to, up and away, to keep Michaels from really driving the ball. Instead, it was a high fly ball to deep right center and the game was done.
And there was much rejoicing by the monkey boy Harang!
Game Quick Hitters:
WP: Aaron Harang | LP: J. Happ
Sv: H. Bell
Player of the game: Aaron “Clyde” Harang
Read and watch more about the game here:
MLB Game Report
Box Score
Video Highlights
SnS Gamezone Madness