Who gives a shit? It’s gone!
Game 3: April 7, 2016
Yankees 8, Astros 5
W: Shreve (1-0) L: Harris (0-1) S: Miller (1)
HR: White (1), Tucker (1), and pretty much every Yankee
OK, let’s get this out of the way up front. Winning pitchers and losing pitchers are such bullshit. Take it away, HH:
Harris is the only one who hasn’t pitched like shit, and now he’s on the hook for the loss.
If you click on that “win probability” link, the stats show what was obvious to our eyes – Harris did a much better job than any other Astro pitcher, and he gets hung with the loss. Life is short, and brutal, and unfair.
This all got off to a nice start as youngsters White and Tucker went back-to-back (although I incorrectly described White’s shot as opposite field, because for some reason, I keep trying to make him a lefty) in the 2nd inning for a 3-0 lead. Fiers immediately gave 1 run back in the bottom, limiting that damage only because Astro-killer Starlin Castro did an interpretive dance instead of sliding into second base to end the inning.
Fires did nothing to fool the Yankees, and even as White delivered a two-run single for a 5-2 lead in the 4th, his slop-throwing inspired no confidence. Per Mark in the 5th:
Astros will be losing the lead this inning. Fiers has nothing.
Three posts later:
ARod hammers an 0-2 hanging fastball into CF to plate Ellsbury to tie it up
Yeah, it was that kind of day.
In a 5-5 game in the 7th, Harris got a leadoff grounder, followed by a Gardner single. That was enough to make him the loser, because Ken Wagner Giles followed him, and proceeded to allow a 3-run “Tex Message” to close out the scoring.
5 runs, 6 runs, 5 runs… and 1 win.
Get your shit together, pitchers.