Brewers 8, Astros 7
by Mr. Happy
I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to cover for Budgirl on the recap of the Monday night ball game craptacular until now. So here goes nothing. What angle to take on a ball game that we tried to lose in so many ways and were almost denied by the Brewers’ bully, which is as dreadful as ours? I had already dropped a Frankie Valli reset into the mix. However, the song Henry the Eighth came to mind, particularly the statement between the first and second stanzas. Hence the take off title.
Well, let’s look at the bright side. Think of this ballgame as a double header. On the one hand, we won the six inning game 2-0 behind Bud Norris’s nice effort. However, Bud got a little wobbly with his command in the seventh, when the Brewers started hitting. And scoring. However, was Bud the loser again? Nope. That “honor” goes to Agent Cordero, who is conjuring up memories of past Astros pitchers like Marc “Exxon” Valdes, whose name actually came up in the Game Zone from the extremely erudite Dark Star.
On the other hand, we lost the three inning game 8-6. We got to witness first hand how truly difficult it’s been for Ron Roenicke to find a consistent pitcher in his bullpen too. Agent Livan Hernandez really tried to lay some meatballs in there for our hitters, who actually were hitting them. However, the disaster that is Francisco Cordero managed to come in and actually pitch as badly or worse. And Xavier Cedeno gave up a three run bomb to Cody Ransom that actually made the difference, only it looked like mere add-on at the time.
It looked like add-on because the Astros actually came within a eyelash of tying the game up in the ninth inning. If it wasn’t for a spectacular play by Izturis in the hole to nip JD at first base to end the ball game, Axford would have blown another save. The Brewers have failed on 20 save opportunities this season, and it was almost 21. As Maxwell Smart would say, “missed it by that much.” Bottom line: 8-7. Losers again. As we say in all 12 step programs, “keep coming back!”