Astros get shut out by Nats 7-0

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

BOX

All time Houston Astros great and future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio wore number seven. There are seven notes in the traditional Western diatonic scale. Agatha Christie wrote The Seven Dials Mystery and Seven Pillars of Wisdom is a book by T.E. Lawrence. Stephen Covey wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Someone spent seven years in Tibet and wrote a book about it.

In Islam there are seven heavens. The number of layers of the Earth in Islamic religion is seven. According to Hinduism, there are seven worlds in the universe, seven seas in the world and seven Rishies (seven gurus) called sapta rishis. Of course there are the so-called Seven Deadly Sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. And the contrasting Seven Virtues: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility. And the seven days it took to create this mess.

There were Seven Cities of Gold. Atlantis had seven islands. It is also the number of stellar objects in the solar system visible to the naked eye from Earth – the Sun, the Moon and the five classical naked eye planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.

Did you know almost all mammals have 7 cervical vertebrae? A seven-spot Ladybird has, you got it, seven spots. There is a Seinfeld episode “The Seven:” Seven is the name George Costanza desires to give his first-born, having allegedly promised this to the widow of baseball great Mickey Mantle (whose uniform number was 7). The 7th Inning stretch is attributed to the 27th U.S. President, William Howard Taft.

In Buddhism, Buddha walked 7 steps at his birth. The Seven Virgins mountain range is in Sri Lanka. Mahatma Gandhi’s list of the destructive Seven Blunders of the World that cause violence: Wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice and politics without principle.

In Galician folklore, a seventh son will be a werewolf.

The Astros got whacked by seven runs last night.

If you care to find out more about the game check out the Game Zone commentary. Thursday is an off day, Friday the Astros welcome the Sea Hags with Brad Peacock facing off against Felix Hernandez.

Damn, that Gandhi dude was smart.

Umpires: HP: Paul Schrieber. 1B: Will Little. 2B: Mark Carlson. 3B: Ted Barrett.
Weather: 74 degrees, partly cloudy.
Wind: 13 mph, In from CF.
T: 3:02.
Att: 25,172.
Venue: Minute Maid Park.

Astros 5, A’s 1

Submitted by Reuben

By 3:42 Central Time Sunday afternoon everyone wanted to know: Who is this Collin Mc… Hugh? Whatshisname. Who is that guy? Where did he come from? Whose shirts does he wear? And why is it that no one could remember ever hearing of him before last week?

Stories vary widely about the origins of the mysterious Mr. McHugh. Some say he had never played professional baseball until a month ago, when he was discovered performing Herculean feats of farming prowess in a cornfield outside of Lucas, Kansas, and convinced by an Astros employee to try throwing a baseball. Others insist that he’s played major league baseball for years, except his name used to be Johan Santana, and he used to throw left-handed.

And then there are those who believe that he was found in a crate, hidden in a warehouse belonging to the US Government, the product of top-secret experiments conducted by Nazis to create the ultimate soldier/curve-ball specialist. Oddly, no one in the Astros’ front office can quite remember whose idea it was to trade for Mr. McHugh, or where they’d even heard of him. One source familiar with the Astros’ thinking explains that if you squint at the computer printout of McHugh’s career Sabermetric stats, it looks a little bit like an image of Jesus wearing a baseball cap.

Easily the most plausible theory of Mr. McHugh’s genesis, however, involves Astros manager Bo Porter, who, of course, is largely, if not solely, responsible for every win or loss earned by the club. Fans and 3rd-string Chronicle writers alike laud Porter’s brilliance for his rumored use of a time machine to travel 20 years into the past and enroll a young McHugh in a little-known pitching academy perched upon a mountainside in Nepal, run by a group of mute Buddhist monks.

Believers in this theory praise Porter in particular for coming up with the idea to plant a post-hypnotic suggestion in McHugh’s mind, that would prevent him from tapping into his vast pitching abilities until he donned an Astros uniform and had Jason Castro whisper the mystic phrase “yangervis solarte” in his ear. However, Porter draws heavy criticism from the same sources because, they argue, any halfway-competent MLB manager with access to a time machine would have gone back to 2009 and insisted that his organization draft Mike Trout, and not, say, Jiovanni Mier.

While his history prior to last week may be shrouded in obscurity, what is perfectly clear is that Mr. McHugh pitched another dominant baseball game Sunday, tossing 8.666666667 innings of 2-hit ball, allowing 1 meaningless run and striking out 7. Unfortunately, I was not able to watch the game, although… can any of us truly be sure that we’ve actually seen Collin McHugh pitch? Or have we just dreamt it?

**Check out the GameZone thread, full of hearsay and tall tales.

**And the mlb.com boxscore, with the “facts”.

contributed by NeilT

I love the A’s. If I didn’t have a kick-ass team like the Astros to follow, I might well like following the A’s, what with their Southern Baptists stylings of green and gold polyester with white shoes, and Mr. Bean as their general manager. Plus they have a storied history that could serve as a model for other franchises.

When Connie Mack finally stepped down as manager of the A’s in 1950, they had a losing record that covered almost all of the 17 years from their last dynasty. Overall during that period Connie Mack would lose 1,489 games and win 986. That’s a winning percentage of .398. In 1950 they finished with the worst record in baseball, 52-102. Mack had given a minority interest in the A’s to his three sons, and they finally did the only thing that they could do: they fired the manager. It’s just like King Lear.

Being good sons, having slain their father, they immediately fell to disagreeing. Mack had owned the team with Tom Shibe, and then Shibe’s sons, and Connie, Jr. and the Shibe heirs allied against Roy and Earle Mack and put the team up for sale. Roy and Earle had a first option, and to buy the team they mortgaged it to Connecticut General Life Insurance Company for $1.74 million, with annual payments of $200,000 for the first five years of the loan.

The team had been cheaply run since the 30s, except for a brief period in 1950 when Connie Jr. tried to spend some money on improvements. Now Roy and Earle — you got to wonder who played the banjo and who played the fiddle — did what their father would have done: they cut costs. They had a winning season in 1952, but otherwise they were about as bad as a bad baseball team could be. They were purposefully bad, and it wasn’t for any rebuilding purpose either.

The Phightin’ Phils meanwhile were playing well. In 1950 the A’s were in last place while the Phils went to the World Series. Roy and Earle again faced the problem and cut more player and front office costs, turned over the rents to Connecticut General, cut minor league teams, and began phightin’ among themselves. In 1954 the A’s finished 51-103, with season attendance of 304,666, or 1,978 per game.

It’s hard to imagine a team winning only 51 games.

By 1954, the Macks were heading to bankruptcy, the Phils controlled Philadelphia, and the American League owners were bitching about the lousy gate. The American League president, Will Harridge, forced a move to the Midwest, to Kansas City, where the Yankees AAA affiliate played in Blues Stadium. Arnold Johnson bought the club. In 1955 opening day for the A’s was in Kansas City. Johnson — and write this in your notes ‘cause there may be a quiz — owned Yankee Stadium and was a business partner of the Yankee owners. And it wasn’t like the Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York Giants. No one in Philadelphia seemed unhappy to see them go.

The take from Johnson was $3.5 million, which paid off the mortgage and gave a nice return. The Macks sold Shibe Park to the Phils.

***

With thanks to Wikipedia. There’s also a very good article here: http://sabr.org/research/departure-without-dignity-athletics-leave-philadelphia

***

What can you say about a game like tonight’s? I have to admit, I left in the 9th after fields? gave up the first three runs on sucky relief work and sucky fielding. It was almost 11, and I wanted to go fishing in the morning.

Into the 9th the score was tied, 0-0, or 5-5, or 25-25. Ok, 5-5. Peacock gave up 4 in the second, and one more in the fourth, and did not look like the 30-game winner we all know he is. It wasn’t tied because of excellent pitching and fine crisp defense. Nossir. It was tied because both teams had sucked in about equal ways, with lots of walks given by Peacock, men stranded, and poor fielding, but in the 3rd the the ‘Stros scored one off of Chavez, and in the 4th scored four more.

Going into the 9th, tie game, I was thinking man, we could win this thing.

We didn’t. In the 9th the Astros showed their love, taking it at about every angle in every orifice. I left maybe 4 batters into the 9th, walked 8 blocks to my car, drove up out of the garage and drove through downtown and midtown and Montrose to home, and when I got home the ninth inning wasn’t over yet. It was the longest 9th inning ever, and the pukiest. The A’s scored 5 ER off of fields? and 2 off of Bass.

End of the game, 5-12 A’s. The A’s had sent 48 people to the plate in the 9th, including their team trainer, the headshot coordinator, and the dog walker.

Thank goodness I love the A’s, because otherwise I’d hate the A’s.

Athletics 10 Astros 1

Contributed by Mr. Happy

Little did we know it at the time, but this one was over in the top of the first frame, when Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods clubbed the first of his two long balls to give Oakland and Scott Kazmir (3-0) an early 2-0 lead that they would never relinquish. Poor Brett Oberholltzer (0-4) was pretty ordinary tonight, leaving too many pitches over the plate, and the A’s didn’t miss them. Alberto Callaspo also contributed a line drive home run as the Athletics garnered 14 knocks in the game. As bad as it was, it could have been worse—the Athletics were 3-14 w/RISP and had 11 LOBsters. The Astros made five, count ‘em, five fucking errors. Sheesh. Pick up that damn ball for crying out loud.

Oberholtzer didn’t get out of the fourth frame, surrendering six earnies and two free passes. Paul Clemens relieved Oberholzer and pitched rather ineffectively until the home plate umpire, Toby Basner, ran him for dotting former Astro Jed Lowrie in what appeared to be a hangover from last week’s shenanigans. If Clemens gets fined, I’d demand that Porter pay it, because I’m convinced that Porter gave that order. On the bright side, if there is one in a 10-1 ass kicking, punching bag Jerome Williams, whose lifetime BAA against the Athletics was around .370 in over 100 ABs, pitched two scoreless and hitless frames to bring his ERA down under 6, so he’s got that going for him.

Despite only putting one run, the Astros had ten hits. Jose Altuve led the way with three hits, while Matt Dominguez and Jonathan Villar contributed two hits apiece. Situational hitting was a bug-a-boo again because the club was 1-10 w/RISP and had 11 LOBsters. Saddle up sports fans, we’ve got the A’s again tonight, with Brad Peacock taking the hill against Jesse Chavez in another rematch from last week. Let’s pray that this one goes better than the rematch last night.

Astros’ lose 5-3 after Kyle Seager’s walk off 3 run homer

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

For a brief moment it looked like the Astros might get their first series sweep of the year. Josh Fields came on in the ninth with a 3-2 lead and gave up hits to Robinson Cano and Corey Hart, putting a man on first and second before getting Justin Smoak to strike out. That’s when Kyle Seagrrr hit his second homer of the game.

Jared Cosart pitched well, bouncing back from his horrid last start. He took a shutout into the seventh after failing to make it out of the first inning in his previous start. The Astros got a two-run double from Jason Castro in the third inning and Chris Carter hit his second homer of the series in the seventh to take a 3-0 lead.

Seagrrrrr, who entered the day hitting .156 with just two RBIs on the season, hit his first homer of the game, a two run shot in the bottom of the seventh to make the score 3-2, Astros. Fucker.

The Astros return home Thursday to face the Oakland A’s and Scott Kazmir (2-0, 1.65 ERA). The Astros will counter with Brett Oberholtzer (0-3, 3.04 ERA) who is ready for a win.

Game Time: 2:50.
Weather: 53 degrees, Cloudy.
Wind: 2 mph, In From Left.
Attendance: 13,739.