Royals 2, Astros 0
W: Hochevar (4-7)
L: W. Rodriguez (6-5)
Well, as this game wore on I started to get a little upset. Wandy was “laboring” as they say – struggling with his control, allowing a lot of traffic on the bases, having trouble putting guys away – and meanwhile, the Astros were no-hit until the 5th inning. By Luke Hochevar. Luke Hochevar! Allow me to throw his career stats at you (by the way, apparently there was another Hochevar, named Joseph, who pitched in the Giants’ farm system in the 50’s. Related?):
6-12 5.51
7-13 6.55
6-6 4.81
11-11 4.68
4-7 5.65
Those are Luke’s numbers since 2008. Shitty. He’s a very talented baseball player, don’t get me wrong; guy is a major leaguer, he deserves respect. But as major leaguers go, he’s shitty. I could be wrong here – maybe he deserves more credit for a great game – but it looked to me like the Astros batters did him a lot of favors last night. Pitch after pitch would end up on the opposite end of the zone from where Q set up his mitt. Down-and-in would go high-and-away, etc. Didn’t matter, the Astros were hacking, and making feeble contact. Or no contact, in the case of Justin Maxwell, who struck out 3 times (mostly hacking at balls 2 feet outside in the dirt). Then there’s Jordan Schafer. His very first AB was described quite well by SnS’s own Chuck a week or two ago:
He wastes most of his strikes fucking around trying to bunt. He’s a bad bunter so I don’t really know why he or anyone else thinks this is a good idea. He invariably finds himself 0-2 or 1-2 and with the exception of that one ten pitch at bat the other day he strikes out immediately thereafter either by lunging at a ball outside or, more likely, watching the third strike and then complaining about it. He’s about as mature as a mold spore.
Schafer continued to prove Chuck’s point later in the game, getting thrown out by the pitcher on a lame bunt-hit attempt. The real offensive goat, though, was Maxwell: in the bottom of the 6th, he had a horrible AB with men on 2nd & 3rd and one out, striking out swinging, and bottom 8th, men on 2nd & 3rd again (Lowrie and Lee both times) with 2 outs, J-Max takes a meatball on 3-1 before waving feebly at ball 4 to end the inning. Arrrgghhh, see, it’s making me upset again. Mrs. Reuben had to gently remind me a few times to not get so negative, and at least enjoy the tasty burgers I’d grilled (with grilled onions and chili and cheddar, mmmm). It was good advice.
On the bright side, Lee was 2-3 to bring his average back to .300, CJ had 2 hits, including the no-no-breaker-upper, Lowrie walked a couple times, and Wandy righted the ship in his last few innings to end up with 7 IP and 2 ER – a Butler HR in the 1st, and Escobar RBI single in the 3rd. Oh yeah, and Altuve made a couple very nice 4-3s in the field, and Maxwell had the catch of the night- a great leaping grab at the LF scoreboard to rob extra bases from… some Royal.
Anyway, it’s OK, see? No need to get angry. Shitty pitchers luck into great games every once in a while*. Go get ‘em tomorrow (er, today), boys! A series win is still within your grasp!
PS. Apologies for the late recap. Wouldn’t have been quite so late, but we caught a groundhog in our groundhog trap and had to go drive to the other side of the local reservoir and release the poor critter. Go creep around somebody else’s garden, buddy!
*Did You Know? Hochevar was the 1st overall pick in 2006. Perhaps he’s just finally fulfilling his potential. Then again, I seem to remember everyone thinking it was a horrendous pick at the time (some kind of favor to Boras, maybe? I can’t remember the deal).