Astros 4
MarONRs 3
submitted by Neil T
It’s easy to write about a bad team. There are so many ways to approach it: Anger, despair, resignation, incredulity, amusement . . . But this team is playing well, and they’re beating the Scurvy Scum Lickers, so what’s to feel but elation? Disbelief?
This is, after all, the greatest rivalry in baseball. It’s the Montagues and the Capulets, the Beatles and Rolling Stones, Colgate and Crest, the Republican Party. It’s the Astros and the Mariners.
The stadium was packed tonight. Everywhere you looked it was orange and blue or teal and silver. I swear I saw Woden, official Norse god of the Astros, brandishing his spear of orange lightening against the teal blue trident of Neptune. And it all rested on the strong right arm of the journeyman Deduno (2.70), starting against Elias (3.86).
We all know that the Astros moved to the American League so that they could face their hated rivals, the Mariners, more often. Last season I shared the storied World Series history of the Astros/Mariners, from 1903 through 1923, and before I move on to the 30s and 40s, I thought it would be worth sharing another of the greatest moments in the magnificent rivalry of these two great rivals.
Tonight, of course, tonight’s game was just one more page in a long, long book.
Bottom of the first, Altuve leads off with a walk. Gattis then homers with two outs. Marisnick homers in the bottom of the 2nd. In the top of the 3rd, Cano dirves in Austin Jackson. Deduno was replaced by Fields in the 5th. Chapman pitched two left-handers after the first out of the 6th. Neshek replaced Chapman after the first out of the 7th. Qualls pitched the 8th, and Springer hit a home run in the bottom of the 8th. Gregerson came in to close things out, and after 2 home runs allowed did. Troubling, but he did.
Villar was sparkling at short, and Springer nailed a throw from right to home. No effect, but it was a thing of beauty. Altuve had his 9th multihit game in a row. The record is 15, set in 1890. You start hitting the record book with 10.
In 1926, Little Johnny, hospitalized in New York, asked his dad for an autographed ball. The father telegraphed Babe Ruth, and after the telegraph there was a baseball signed by each of the teams in that year’s Series, the Yankees and the Cardinals. Ruth famously promised to hit the child a home run, and he delivered.
The two balls with signatures were delivered to the hospitalized child direct from St. Louis. “But dad,” said little Johnny, “I wanted the Astros/Mariners . . . “