Rangers 6, Astros 2
by Mr. Happy
Caught up in the exhilaration of contributing my first piece to SnS yesterday, I decided to tempt fate and go back to the well for another drink. The circs were different this time though. We weren’t in the City by the Bay; we were in Hell, Texas, a/k/a DFW. If you want just a short list of why Dallas sucks big time, read Ebby Calvin’s fine palpably hatred-filled series preview. In a nutshell, tonight’s game sucked. The clues as to suckitude arrived early on, just as we found out that CB Bucknor was going to be behind the plate tonight. How that guy is still in the big leagues is beyond me. He must have the pics of FYB channeling J. Edgar Hoover in a tutu and spikes. Disgusting. CB’s knowledge of the strike zone tonight was, well, just a shade big. Make that two shades.
This was a matchup of young Jordan Lyles and the well-rested Japanese/Iranian phenom Yu Darvish. The second clue that tonight wasn’t going to be the Astros’ night was that they were facing a starting pitcher who often pitches out of the stretch even when there is no one on base. After four innings, the young Lyles held on to a 1-0 lead, courtesy of a Jed Lowrie RBI single, driving home Altuve, who had gotten in scoring position after a walk by swiping a bag.
For the second straight start, Mr. Lyles ran into a five in five problem. The fielding let him down as Clank Johnson committed his ninth error of the season, which opened the floodgates of Hell with a following series of dink bloop hits and seeing eye singles. But it added up to five runs, which chased Mr. Lyles. The Regulators came into tonight’s game with one out in the bottom of the fifth, and only allowed one run for the balance of the game. But the damage was done.
Rhiner Cruz allowed his fifth home run-a solo bomb tonight by Mitch Moreland- in just 22.1 innings of work—numbers that are Abadesque. Should we keep Rhiner around should be the question on everybody’s minds. To me, he’s taking up a roster spot and better start showing some potential fast or send him back to the steM. His BAA of .311 suggests that he ain’t exactly fooling anyone. And he’s sporting a peachy 1.75 WHIP. Great.
The only other good thing that happened tonight was Justin Maxwell’s seventh home run, a solo shot. Jordan Schreefer should start looking over his shoulder at Maxwell, whose power, with a batting average close to Schreefer’s, may give him an edge in CF.
Yu Darvish, taking advantage of fucktard Bucknor’s ridiculously big strike zone, struck out 11 Astros. The Astros committed three errors tonight, so it just wasn’t a good effort anywhere around.
The good news is that the Game Zone, which had been moribund on the previous day, came back to life with a vengeance, where luminaries such as our own lovable Ron Brand waxed poetic on their intense hatred for front-running, classless RangerFan. I’ll close with another shot at CB Bucknor: you suck, Bucknor. If Millsie had half the nuts of some managers, he’d have gotten run by the end of the fifth inning on your horseshit strike calls.