Pirates at Astros, 4/24/2010
Astros 5, Pirates 2
W W. Rodriquez (1-2) L Jakubauskas (0-1)
S Lindstrom (6)

Game Wrapup: Astros.com

It’s a long season… seriously!

It’s taken three weeks of baseball, but the 2010 Houston Astros have shown the makings of a team ready to compete in the National League Central.  To celebrate that fact, tonight they jumped out of the cellar in the NLC and into a tie for fourth, with only 3.5 games out of first place a reality for them.  The Astros beat up on the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight to the tune of 5-2 as Wandy Rodriquez won his first game of the season.  The little lefty coming off a break out season last year, showed the flashes of Minute Maid Wandy.

Never really looking like he was in too much trouble, Rodriquez logged a 7.1 inning, 5 hit, 2 run night.  Yet another quality outing by an Astros starter and if this keeps up, the upward climb out of the bottom feeder area of the NL Central can and will continue.  But just like it was too early to write off the 2010 season, it’s waaaay too early to print playoff tickets too.  Then again, if Puma says it’s a reality, well then, who is to argue with the man?  Probably a whole lot of roller coaster loving fans I’m sure.  Bear in mind though, Houston is hit upon a formula now that is conducive towards getting themselves into good season-long competitiveness: Pitching and defense with just enough offense.

DUCK!!! (part 2)

It’s hard to call the offensive play of the night a line drive that hit an opposing pitcher in the head, but in this case, there are many ramifications to that occurrence. In the first inning, Puma batting cleanup (because Carlos Lee got a day off to think about other things for a while) drilled a solid line drive back up the middle.  It unfortunately found the back of the head of young Pittsburgh hurler Jakubauskas.  Down went the pitcher in a very scary moment that everyone hates to see in baseball.  For his part, Jakubauskas tried to right himself in a reasonable fashion before he was taken by ambulance to Methodist Hospital where early reports are that he’s going to be okay.  *Phew*, God Bless young man. 

The significance of the play is that the Pirates were forced to use a reliever so early on after having to use up arms in their previous series with the Brew Crew.  FoF Pence promptly greeted the reliever with a ringing double to center LF and that was the beginning of the end of the night for the Pirates.  Later in the game, Happy Pete hit his first shibby of the season, a two run shot to pretty much ice the game.  For the ninth inning, the Pirates decided to make one last run at winning the game as they loaded the bases against Lindstrom The Strong.  Puma came in and promptly reminded Matty that there were two outs and that he still had a 97mph four seamer he could use to close this thing.  He did, throwing a nasty riser to Cedeno and getting the last out on a fly ball to right field and sealing Houston third straight series win.

Saturday Night, that can only mean one thing: BAGWELL!

In case you’re unaware of this, Jeff Bagwell has committed to being in the television broadcast booth with Brownie and JD every Saturday home game.  My own intuition tells me this must of come out of the off-season caravan trips with Baggs and JD sitting on the bus and shooting the breeze.  Someone must of mentioned how great this sort of running dialogue could be if they did it on air.  Genius whoever thought of it, a great move.  Example:

Brownie: “What do you think of Jeff Keppinger?”
Bagwell: “I like him. He grows on you.”
Deshaies: “Let’s rename him ‘Fungus.'”
and
Brownie: “… he actually compares better than Albert Pujols at this stage of his career…”
Bagwell: “whoa, whoa, whoa Brownie… wait a minute, don’t ever compare the best player on the planet to anyone again.”
Brownie: “… hehe, okay.”

Gamezone: A great way to catch up with the action, along with great Astro Fan commentary
stros-ray’s Series Preview: The genius that is Stros-ray

Pirates at Astros, 4/23/2010
Astros 4, Pirates 3
W Oswalt (2-2) L Maholm (1-2)
H Lyon (2), S Lindstrom (5)

Game Wrapup: Astros.com

Rock-a-bye Sweet Baby… oh nevermind

There are times I wish I were as clever and talented as stros-ray and tonight was one of them.  If I were, I’d take James Taylor’s “Sweet Baby James” and change it to a tribute to Michael Bourn.  Then again, perhaps it’s best I not add to the “SBB” gushing as it is on the fringes of the macho meter and frankly, I just don’t have too much of a relationship with my feminine side to make the attempt.  Maybe the tribute should be restricted to a picture painting a thousand gushing words of praise.

WOW!!!

This play happened in the ninth inning as the Pirates were trying to overcome a one run deficit.  The first batter in the inning was Jones and right off the bat, you knew he had a single and quite possibly a double.  But out of nowhere appeared our hero, Mr. Bourn to lay out and absolutely rob the Pirates of perhaps an inning and thus help seal the win for the Astros.  Bourn made several plays on this night that were of the “blue star” variety, but none was greater than this one.  For his part, closer Matt Lindstrom had the best poker face about the whole thing, looking for all the world as if he knew it would be an out all the way with the speedy centerfielder out there covering his back.  Note to self: don’t play texas hold’em with Matt Lindstrom.

Don’t look now, we have an ACE

Roy Oswalt turned in an really good night of work with seven innings of 4 hit baseball.  It was his unfortunate “Oswalt Inning” that bit his good night in the rear and made this game closer than it should have been as two of his four hits allowed were homeruns that scored three runs (two were unearned – thank you Ashby).  Overall, a night of great pitching, outstanding defense and just enough offense to secure another win for the good guys.  It’s how you draw it up on the whiteboard, folks! By the way, this was also the night that Oswalt passed JR Richard on the all-time Houston Astros list of strikeouts by a pitcher.  Oswalt now sits all alone in second place on the list behind Nolan Ryan.

Don’t look now, we have a Bullpen

Someone mentioned in the GZ that Lindstrom and his mates are starting to give the same vibes as Lidge-Dotel-Wagner.  Funny how these thoughts pop into the head of most of us at the same time.  Lindstrom has the type of stuff as Lidge in his breakout season, and if he masters the slider for a few strikes here and there, it’s going to be the return of Lights Out, only this time Lights Out Lindstrom.  So the key is Sampson, Lyon providing key bridge work to Lindstrom (or so it’s looking like right now).  In a very long season, a pitching staff that is strong in the pen and a starting rotation than can give you quality outings is a very scary proposition for the opposing teams.

This will be worth keeping an eye on.

Gamezone: Read the in-game commentary in today’s Gamezone
stros-ray’s Series Preview: The read is awesome as always

Astros at Cubs, 4/17/2010
Astros 4, Cubs 3
W Oswalt (1-2) L Gorzelanny (0-1)
H Sampson, S Lindstrom

Game Wrapup: Astros.com

This Day Belongs to Oswalt
From the first inning when Roy Oswalt took the mound and painted the outside corner of the plate, you knew this was going to be a good day for the hurler. It was as if the clock had been turned back, not in terms of uniforms but in terms of performance by Oswalt and the Astros. It helped that homeplate umpire Cuzzi decided he liked what he saw in terms of the outside corner pitches and soon enough he put both benches on warning that on this day of the wind blowing in at Wrigleyville, that corner was going to be a strike. One look at Derek Lee’s face the first time that corner was called told you this would be a pitcher’s day and with Oswalt looking for all the world like the ACE of old for the blood n’ mud nine, that was not good news for the Baby Bears.

So what made Oswalt revert to his old self? A quick snapshot of his delivery in the early innings provided by Jimmy D told you that Oswalt had the old long stretch and extension in his mechanics again. Amazing what a full follow through will do for a guy with Oswalt’s stuff. Of course, to have that full stretch and extension, Oswalt needs to have health in his back and legs and today, he threw with ease, so can we expect to say that Sparky is throwing without much pain in the lower extremedies any more? Well, at least for one day it looked that way. Couple being able to spot your mid-90s fastball on the corners with changing speeds and you get what you got today from Roy: 7 innings pitched, 5 hits allowed, no runs.

DUCK!!!
It is good to note that in the top of the next inning, someone in the Astros bench (hopefully Sean Berry) was paying attention to the calls by Phil Cuzzi and the fact that soft-tossing lefty Cub pitcher Tom Gorezelanny was on the mound. First up was Carlos Lee, he of the rediscovered nice swing and good approach at the plate. He prompty took an outside corner offering by Gorey (that is his nickname, right?) to right field for the first hit of the game. Next up, young Hunter Pence, probably with a bent ear from Berry telling him “look to hit it to right field or don’t bother coming back to the bench and sitting near me… got it?”. Pence did the right thing and took yet another outside pitch to right for solid knock and the mini-rally was on. Chris Johnson grounded out to third to give Roy a nice present, an actual lead in a game, as Lee scored from third, a bag he hustled to obtain on Pence’s base knock. Gorey survived the inning but got touched up for another run the following inning by hitting star JR “Screw you TZers!” Towles. He was not so lucky in the fourth when Pedro Feliz took a pitch on the inner middle half of the plate that Tommy boy tried to sneak pass him and lined right back up the middle. Down went Gorey! Down went Gorey! The liner caught him square in left wing and even though he protested loudly to Cub Skipper Lou, he was told to take his soft-tossing wounded limb and sit out the rest of the day.

Keppinger and Sampson, Early Season Spike and Star Award Nominees
Crusing with a 3-0 lead, Roy Oswalt pretty much dominated the Cubs for the rest of the day. In the late innings though, Jeff Keppinger provided an insurance run by stroking a soft liner to center-right field, driving in Mr. Towles (he earned the respect on this day), who got on with his third knock of the day. 4-0, late in the game, Roy is taken out, hand shakes all around. Then the merry-go-round began for the Cubs. Brandon Lyon came into the game and promptly awoke the sleeping bats and drunken fans, and before it was all over, he gave up 3 runs on some hard hit baseballs that luckily stayed in the stadium. One shudders to think what would have happened had the wind not been blowing in today. All this drama though was met with a shrewd move by Skipper Millsie, as he brought in the reliever of the hour for the Astros, Chris Sampson. Chris is having an outstanding year so far (*knock on a TZers head*) because of his approach to pitching. His hard work in the offseason to master a killer changeup helps a lot too. Sampson came in and doused the fire started by Lyon and the lead was safe. Lindstrom came in the ninth and shut down the Cubs even though Tommy Manzella forgot for a minute he’s supposed to be an all-glove, no-hit short stop. Lindstrom got Fukidome on a slider/curve/changeup/wiked googly to end the game and allow the Houston nine to high five around the pitchers mound in celebration.

Gamezone: Read the in-game commentary in today’s Gamezone
JD’s Series Preview: The hate-o-rade is following early and often in this FTC series preview