Mariners 4, Astros 0
W: Harang
L: Norris
Contributed by Reuben
Good God what a pitiful effort by the Houston hitters in this one. I stayed awake until 12:30 in the morning to watch this parade of futility?
I’m just glad JD Martinez was able to manage an infield single to the 6 hole early on, otherwise this game would’ve just been 2+ hours of fear. Fear that the Astros would actually get no-hit by this uncouth gorilla, this – embarrassingly enough – Astro-killer, who is now 14-9 in his career vs. them, making him 94-101 against all other teams. Aaron Harang, who has been in the majors since 2002, and just REFUSES to go away and spare us the sight of him in a baseball uniform.
Bud Norris certainly didn’t deserve to lose this game, but unfortunately for him, Ronny Cedeno was playing shortstop tonight, and the Astro hitters reached what one can only hope is their nadir amidst an awful string of poor hitting. Was it really that bad? Did they not hit any balls hard at all? Well, no. Almost. JD hit a ball very well in the 7th or 8th, for his 2nd single – he was the only Astro to record any base hits. Barnes hit a ball hard that ricocheted off the Seattle SS, Ryan, and was ruled an error. Dominguez hit one or two hard liners that were run down.
But that was pretty much it. Altuve continues to look lost, either pulling off the ball or feebly swinging at junk in the dirt and a foot outside. He looks like the 2011 rookie version of himself, swinging out of his shoes at anything within an 8 foot radius. When Crowe bats, he looks like he’s holding a wet newspaper and trying to defend himself against a gang of muggers. Each Ronny Cedeno plate appearance looks like a caricature of Hunter Pence’s worst at-bat ever. Why anyone would ever throw him a fastball over the plate is beyond me, and yet Harang threw him two right down the middle in the same AB tonight. Cedeno completely missed both of them.
I can only assume ol’ Ronny is THE best clubhouse guy, ever, because, well, he appears to suck quite badly at both the offensive and defensive parts of the game. Surely some other barely-major-league-caliber SS has been DFA’d or waived recently, somewhere? At the very least, he has demonstrated quite conclusively that he does not deserve to start a single game while Marwin Gonzalez is able-bodied and available.
Alright… I see that this has gone on long enough, so I won’t even start on Chris Carter. Time to get some sleep.
[/end harangue]