Cardinals 4, Astros 1
W: Garcia (6-7)
L: Harrell (10-11)
Contributed by Reuben
The Houston National League club’s life is slowly reaching its end, and the team’s play is beginning to feel like the horrible irregular breathing of a mortally wounded creature. After playing surprisingly competitive baseball for the first 2-3 weeks of September, the Astros have lost 3 in a row to bring that ugly total to 105 for the year. They have looked particularly overmatched against the Cardinals, as they have barely put up a fight in being manhandled, er, beaten 5 times in the past week (10 straight overall) by their playoff-bound one-time rivals.
The Astros have had a number of guys KO’d recently by injuries (Martinez. Gonzalez, Gonzalez, Abad, Greene) or just plain getting abused by the opposition (Paredes, Bogey, et al). Tonight even Lucas Harrell seemed battered and frazzled, although he did manage to wriggle out of trouble well enough to escape with 2 runs allowed in 5 innings. Unfortunately, the Astros could not manage so much as 1 run, and he got stuck with the loss, dropping to 10-11, which is a shame considering how much of an unexpected bright spot he’s been this year. Kid’s probably just hit a wall.
Good things that happened:
-Altuve went 2-for-4
-Brandon Laird had 2 hits, and is hitting .346 somehow
-Scott Moore stayed hot, singling in his only AB
-Altuve and Downs made nice plays in the field to help get Harrell out of trouble
-Wallace turned nicely on an inside pitch, unfortunately the 1B made a diving catch of the liner and doubled the runner off to end a mini-rally.
-we didn’t have to see Jordan Schafer or Bogusevic “bat”.
My only remaining, flimsy hope for the 2012 edition of this team is that they can somehow win 3 more games to avoid the ignominious 110-loss mark, although, one could say, I am not holding my breath.