steM 3 Astros 1

by Mr. Happy

R. A. Dickey was on the mound for the Mets today. I love watching knuckleballers pitch. It takes me back to my high school senior prom when I was pressured into taking this ugly girl who had a crush on me and who claimed that I asked her when I was very drunk.

At the prom, and before it, my friends and some of my team mates were giving me so much shit about the date that I feigned an ankle sprain so that I could leave the dance and go back to the motel room. Back at the room, unfortunately accompanied by my date, I turned on the television and, lo and behold, the motel had WTBS, which was showing the Braves game.

I was giddy and fixed myself a drink, the first of many, and proceeded to pay zero attention to my date and to watch Phil Niekro and a sorry Braves team play the almost as bad Philadelphia Phillies. Niekro threw a complete game, and the Braves won 4-2. Here’s the box score that literally saved my life and reputation.

During the game, I paid absolutely no attention to my date and focused on Niekro’s magical mastery of the knuckleball, despite her bothersome amorous advances. By game’s end, my date realized that the fix was in. I had ruined her senior prom. She never spoke to me again, which didn’t bother me. I was a hero with the guys for quick thinking. But I digress.

Meanwhile, back at the Astros game, one Fernando Abad was on the mound for the Good Guys against R.A. Dickey. For three innings, Abad bent but didn’t break, walking a bunch. Unfortunately, the Mets scratched out a run for a lead that they would never relinquish. The Astros would only garner five hits off of Dickey and the Mets en route to a 3-1 loss in Flushing, Queens.

Missoula, here I come!!!

Astros 3
Mets 1

by NeilT

Astros beat the Mets tonight. I felt bad about that, I’m a big Mets fan. I especially loved Leonard Dykstra, particularly his great songs:

Suzanne takes you down
to a place by the river
where she feeds you tea and oranges
that came all the way from China

I’ve always wondered if that song wasn’t the foundation of our current trade imbalance. I won’t hardly eat an orange, if it don’t come from China.

So much has happened since I last wrote a recap, I hardly know where to begin. The manager was fired because it was discovered the Astros were infected with the zombie virus, and Mills didn’t know how to manage the walking dead. There was a new interim manager hired, but I can’t write about him because I don’t know his name. I’ve been reading the new Dave Robicheaux novel, which made me think of Mr. Happy, and since he’s the only person that reads recaps I wanted to ask if he’d read it. I’m not in last place in the fantasy league anymore because I’ve actually been paying attention.

I could write about my deep and abiding love of the Mets, and how they are the mirrors of our souls.

But none of those. Last night I came home and turned on the tv and sat on the back porch with the door open and read Creole Bell and cooked veal chops and asparagus on the grill. I paid some attention to the game, but after the game we watched Red Dawn because I wanted to prepare for the coming UN Invasion.

SCENE ONE — THE INVASION

We was sitting in our dugout, listening to the new manager talk about some Mongoloid shit, when these guys with these funny blue baseball caps parachuted onto the field. We figured it was some training mission that landed in the wrong place so Altuve–he speaks that Spanish shit–Altuve goes out to tell them they’re in the wrong place. This really ugly guy just blows him away. Then he does the same thing to Marwin–maybe it was because they both went out there speaking Spanish? Brett gets to first, but then Francisco go down and I take off. I’m pissing myself, I tell you, but I get past three of them, and we head out to my dad’s place on County Road 5 in my pick-up. Then this Colonel guy shows up, Colonel DeFrancesco, and I ask him, Colonel, how’d you get shot down? “It was five to one,” he says, “I got four.” ASTROWOLVERINES!

SCENE TWO — TAKING TO THE HILLS

Getting out of town we lost two more guys, Pearce and Green. Green just stood there looking and took the bullet, but Snyder, he just walked on over to the truck and climbed in. Man it made me happy. Then Barnes screamed ASTROWOLVERINES! and blasted one of those blue-capped bastards out to deep center field and Snyder came home! Man, it was great! Then I told ’em, we gotta stand and fight because we’re Americans, and this is Lubbock, and those bastard Cuban UN troops can’t take us. So I drank some blood and blasted a double out to left and Barnes scored. Then Altuve died again? How does that shit happen? I thought he died in scene one? I walked one of ’em–Davis, is that a Cuban name, or Russian?–in the second, and gave up a single, but then Davis got thrown out at home, Altuve and Marwin screamed some shit at those MetroCubUNs and took out two with a double play. It was bad, man. I said to Altuve, man, they were people, how did it feel? “It was good,” he said.

SCENES THREE THROUGH SEVEN — STUFF HAPPENS

There’s a bunch of stuff happens for awhile, but us ASTROWOLVERINES are gritty and young and brave and we take the best stuff them MetroCubUNs can dish for the next 5 innings. I went straight through the third, but that Niese guy showed up again and he did the same. Then in the fourth this really badass Russian guy, Wrightagorsky, just blows a bomb to right and takes some of us out. It was ugly. But I got one of the Cubans, Valdespin, out swinging and Torres went down and we got through the inning still one run up. The fifth and sixth were three up three down, but the top of the seventh, Tyler Greene, who’d been kinda a chicken shit most of the game, gets really brave for this one scene and blows out 422 feet to left. It was great, man, we was cheering and shit, Snyder took some out with a double, and then Barnes took a bullet to get Snyder to third. It was all looking good, a man on third with one out, and I tell Martinez, look man, I can’t do this, you gotta do this, and Martinez went in for me and took a bullet. At least he went out swinging. Wesley Wright, who’s like the youngest and littlest guy in the ASTROWOLVERINES!, did all sorts of brave stuff in the seventh. I heard Colonel DeFrancesco talking to Wright at the end of the inning. “Son,” he said to Wright, “all that hate’s going to burn you up.” Wesley just glared: “it keeps me warm.”

SCENE EIGHT — WE TAKE OUT THE RUSSIAN GENERAL

We finally blow the Russian general Niese away in the eighth, and Pearce stole some stuff from them after a walk, but not much else happened. W Wright did some more stuff, but W Lopez finally killed off Wrightagorsky for the last out in the 8th. It was then we knew–we could beat these MetroCubUNs. I looked at the Colonel and asked, so this is the battlefield? He gave me his best steely stare, “it’s a real war, kid. It’s here everyday.”

SCENE NINE — THE PLAQUE

This chick shows up and reads from a plaque:

“In the early days of World War 3, guerillas – mostly children – placed the names of their lost upon this rock. They fought here alone and gave up their lives, so that the Astros should not perish from the earth.”

Cardinals 13 Astros 5

by Mr. Happy

Today’s matinee was just another in a seemingly endless series of games of suck where the Good Guys start off good but finish shitty as usual. The Astros touched up Terdinals starter Jake Westbrook, who wasn’t sharp, for five runs in five innings of work. However, just to provide more proof that he’s up to the suckitude task, Dallas Keuchel, who falls to 1-6, yielded six runs (five of them earned) in but four plus innings.

The game could have ended after five frames with the Terdinals up 6-5 and I’d have been happier than I usually am. However, the Cards weren’t finished dealing, piling on seven more runs to win going away. The Terdinals bully, unlike our leaky bully, was very stingy, shutting the Astros out in the last four frames. Countering their bullpen proved to be too difficult for the cadre of wannabe big league pitchers who paraded into the game after Dallas Keuchel, who, himself, is a wannabe in my opinion.

We welcomed the newest Astro, one Hector Ambriz, who immediately proved that he belonged in Houston (he was cut this year by pitching-starved Cleveland, which I learned in the Game Zone–amazing what you can learn in there–so that should tell you all you need to know about Ambriz) by surrendering two earnies in one inning of shit. We bade farewell to the recently DFA’d Armando “I got nothing” Galarraga. What took so long to see that?

The losing streak has now reached seven as we make our way to the Big Apple to play the fucking steM. Read Craig’s series piece. It’s full of the customary venom and f-bombs that we’ve come to know and love Craig for. I could go on and on about how crappy this team is, but it wouldn’t do any of us any good. We suck. Thank you, that is all.

Cardinals 4, Astros 2

by Sphinx Drummond

Some games are worse than others and some not as bad.

Going up against Cardinal starter Kyle Lohse, who hasn’t lost since June 15, and countering with “Cardinal Killer” Bud Norris, who hasn’t won since you know when, the Astros appeared ripe to put a halt to Lohse’s six game winning streak. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

Things started off okay with the Astros scoring in the first inning by a solo shot by Bret Wallace. The Cards came back to tie the game in the second but Chris Snyder hit a solo homerun in the third inning to give the Astros their second lead of the game. It was also the first and second time new manager DeFrancesco had seen his team take a lead in a game. The Astros have now scored three runs in 27 innings under DeFrancesco and continue to make stupid plays in the field. Somewhere Brad Mills was overheard saying, “I told you so.”

Hitless over the last 6 innings, the Astros bats dried up after Marwin Gonzalez’ third inning infield single. Assisted by some typical shitty defensive execution, the Cardinals took the lead with two runs in the fifth, and added an insurance run in the eighth to claim a 4-2 victory over the Astros.

Norris, who is now 5-11 and had a 7-3 record with a 2.47 ERA in his 12 previous starts against the Cardinals, has now lost ten consecutive games. He allowed 7 hits over six innings while striking out one and walking another. Among active pitchers with at least 10 starts against the Cardinals, no one has a lower ERA than Bud. Wesley Wright pitched a solid 3 up 3 down seventh inning and retired the only batter he faced in the eighth.

Lohse pitched another fine game, he didn’t walk a batter, threw only 87 pitches and retired the last 14 hitters he faced. With the win, St. Louis now leads in the race for the second NL Wild Card spot. And with the loss the Astros will try to avoid being swept out of St. Louis in the third game of the series when Dallas Keuchel takes on the Jakes’ Jake Westbrook in a businessman’s special, or matinee, or whatever is cool slang for a day game.

Cardinals 7, Astros 0

Contributed by Reuben

I didn’t see much of this game. Saw the bottom of the first inning on my phone as my wife and I were driving home, poor 3G reception providing a convenient excuse not to prolong the agony. Harrell gave up 4 runs, 1 on a bullshit balk, the rest on a succession of rinky-dink singles, at least one or two were of the broken-bat variety. It was a pretty big bummer, seeing as Harrell’s starts are by far the Astros’ best chances at winning a game these days, and being down 4 runs almost guarantees a loss for this club.

But! I have a feel-good, positive story to share. My softball team had a dramatic, come-from-behind playoff victory tonight. Down 10-5 in the 6th (ie. next-to-last) inning, we rallied to win 12-11, beating Google – who had knocked us out of the playoffs in 2007 and 2008 – to advance to the finals. I think we’re playing CB Richard Ellis or some shit, well, either them or Hendricks Sports Management.

OK, gotta go, we have a 6 am flight to catch. Hunt down the GameZone thread, ’tis likely worth the read.

Diamondbacks 8, Astros 1

W:Kennedy (11-10)
L:Galarraga (0-4)

Seems I’ve got to have a change of scene
‘Cause every night I have the strangest dreams
Imprisoned by the way it could have been
Left here on my own or so it seems
I’ve got to leave before I start to scream
But someone’s locked the door and took the key

You feelin’ alright? I’m not feelin’ too good myself
You feelin’ alright? I’m not feelin’ too good myself

Brad Mills is free, free at last. Hopefully he’s relaxing somewhere, taking a break from the helltrain he’s been riding at the helm of, and surely this far into his career he knows to not read the papers, or at least the publishings of the Home Office because they’re busy polishing the crown of the New King.

Tony DeFrancesco: “When the game started I was in my own place out there. That’s where I belong.”

“I’m kind of disappointed in the at-bats. We’re trying to make adjustments, trying to get the right people out on the field.”

“We’re going to keep pushing, we’re going to keep working and we’re going to execute. It was a fundamentally sound game. The plays were made and the defense was decent.”

Jason Castro: “I think we kind of needed a little bit of a wake-up call, and it struck home with a lot of the guys.”

I’m not going to pick that shit apart for you, you can do that yourself on your own time. Of course, any time you spend trying to spin that straw into gold is more time than it’s worth.

Boy, you sure took me for one big ride
And even now I sit and wonder why
That when I think of you I start to cry
I just can’t waste my time, I must keep dry
Gotta stop believin’ in all your lies
‘Cause there’s too much to do before I die

Gallaraga had the start today – I think he’d started ten times in OKC for DeF, so he probably had a good idea what was coming. Three innings of his deliberate mosey through the lineup, and then when Arizona had him measured they started slapping him around, picking up five runs in the fourth. In the bottom of the inning, FeMart led off with a crank that was reviewed down to a double. After that, Greene flew out to right, Bogey bounced out to third for the first time anybody can remember this year, and Castro popped out.

In the sixth Houston finally scored when Greene’s leadoff double was cashed in by a Castro single with two outs. That’s all the Home Nine were able to scratch out though, and over the last three innings they picked up one hit and one walk.

For the Diamondbacks, Aaron Hill had a big day – a double and two home runs. Castro had two singles and the lone RBI for the woeful Astros. If this is the hard-charging excitement we’re led to believe is exploding from the clubhouse now that there is a New Firebrand Manager We Can All Trust, well, color me unmoved so far by this shell game. Maybe it’ll take a couple of days, or perhaps a road trip to see our good friends the Jakes and the steM and get right by absorbing some good beatings before an extended home stand.

Don’t get too lost in all I say
Though at the time I really felt that way
But that was then, now it’s today;
I can’t get off yet and so I’m here to stay
Till someone comes along and takes my place
With a different name and, yes, a different face