W Capuano (3-4)
L: Rodriguez (0-2)
HR: Barmes and who gives a hell

The Good Guys started out in control, threatening to win a series at home against the hated steM. Leading 2-0 in the fifth, Aneury Rodriguez was throwing a no-hitter and had only walked one. A muffed popup to the mound, muffed out of confusion and poor play, proved to be the first thread in Rodriguez’ undoing. “I lost my concentration. That’s what happened. I lost my concentration, because I tried to do too much,” was the familiar refrain.

Also losing their concentration in the inning were Towles and Bill Hall. With runners on the corners and two out, Towles threw to second in hopes of erasing Jose Reyes on his Little League-like attempted steal. The poor throw was fielded by Hall and Jason Pridie scored from third standing up to make it 4-2. Highly rebarrassin’.

Brad Mills was unable to provide an answer and the chain-whipping continued with a three-run homer in the sixth to make it 7-2.

The Astros doubled New York’s hits – ten to five – but had nothing with runners in scoring position, going 2 for 13. On to Atlanta, where no doubt more hilarity awaits.

Pirates 5, Astros 4

W: McCutchen (1-0)
L: Abad (1-3)
HR BFJ (4), Doumit (3)

Another May day, another starting pitcher treated as though they were the Ghost of Christy Mathewson. James McDonald, who’s gotten the crap kicked out of him in his last three starts, invoked the presence of Master Of Them All today in Steeltown by limiting the Astros to three hits and lots of badly missed pitches in his six shutout innings.

On the other side of the diamond, J.A. Happ pitched in and out of trouble but kept the light-hitting Pirates to two runs through six.

Provided with a 2-0 lead, the previously reliable Buc bullpen flamethrower Chris Resop gave up a blast by Chris Johnson and a single by Hall. Quintero followed by rapping a double, scoring Bill Hall to tie the game. With no outs and Q on second, Angel Sanchez dumped a bunt down the third base line, charged by Brandon Wood. Quintero, running on the play and rounding third by the time the ball was fielded, took advantage of Wood’s wait for the second baseman to cover first and kept running for home. He beat the throw to give the Astros the lead in one of the more spectacular plays we’ll see this season.

Serve it up, rag arm.

Fulchino held the lead in the seventh and turned it over to the bin Laden of the bullpen for the eighth. Allowing Walker and Pearce to reach, Abad gave up the game-winning three-run jack to Ryan Doumit and the Astros lost. Once again, a difficult situation gave way to excitement and the promise of fulfillment, only to be snatched away in favor of dazed head-scratching and disillusion. I think this will help explain.

Read about it in the GameZone or the Astro recap.

Astros 5, Brewers Nada

WP Norris (2-1) | LP Narveson (1-2)

HR Caballo

Bud Norris was on top of his game Sunday, stifling the potent Brewer attack with a mixture of fastballs and darting sliders. Pitching to the strike zone, with an unhittable slider, he struck out 11 and scattered three hits and three walks.

Carlos Lee singled and scored on Bill Hall’s hit in the second and had a three-run jack in the sixth off of a hanging breaking ball. Later, Lee took an Angel Sanchez flying kneedrop to the chest in the eighth on a tweener and was taken to the hospital for X-rays and scans. He’s bruised but not broken, and is day to day.

Fulchino, Abad and Melancon finished up, throwing nine pitches each.

Bin Laden is dead.

W: R. Wolf (3-2) L: W. Rodriguez (1-3)
HR: J. Towles (2); R. Weeks (5), B. Boggs (1)

Well, that was a dismal letdown. After the intrigue and promise of yesterday’s Caligariesque come-from-behinder, today Randy Wolf cast a catatonia over the Astros and their followers on the way to a 4-1 win. 3-0 with a 1.30 ERA in his last four starts against Houston, Wolf put the fatigued Astros to bed in the series finale and only allowed four hits in eight innings, two by Wandy the Enigma.

Wandy gave up homers to Boggs and Weeks but didn’t pitch that badly, considering the explosive offense the Brewers had displayed in the first two games. He got The Peen to strike out twice, including a clutch AB in the first inning with two runners on and the threat was turned back.

No, the blame for this one goes to the somnolent Astro offense. Houston maintained its league lead in hitting by pitchers with Wandy’s two hits, but the only help came in the form of singles by Jason Bourgeois and Angel Sanchez until Towles spanked a four-bagger in the ninth off of closer Axford. The lumber slumbered, especially for #s 4-7 of the lineup : Lee (.216), Hall (.225), Michaels (.111) and Johnson (.181). Even the usually active GameZone took a powder on this one.

On this day when we celebrate redemption and renewal, Astro faithful are instead bedeviled by confusion, disillusion and the weary expectation of a season filled with aspirations of mediocrity. Sometimes sleep is a salve; other times it is a refuge against the daily siege. I believe Bukka White sums up what it is like to be caught in that world where dreaming is the only escape.

When a man gets trouble in his mind
He wants to sleep all the time
When a man gets trouble in his mind
He wants to sleep all the time
He knows if he can sleep all the time
His trouble won’t worry his mind, won’t worry his mind

I’m feelin’ worried in mind
And I’m tryin’ to keep from cryin’
I’m feelin’ worried in mind
And I’m tryin’ to keep from cryin’
I am standin’ in the sunshine
To keep from weakenin’ down, keep from weakenin’ down

I want somewhere to go
But I hate to go to town
I want somewhere to go
To satisfy my mind
I would go to town
But I hate to stand around, hate to stand around

I wonder what’s the matter with my right mind?
My mind keep me sleepin’ all the time
I wonder what’s the matter with my right mind?
My mind keep me sleepin’ all the time
But when I had plenty of money
My friends would come around, would come around

If I had my right mind
I would write my women a few lines
If I had my right mind
I would write my women a few lines
I will do most anything
To keep from weakenin’ down, keep from weakenin’ down

Friars 8, Good Guys 6

WP Frieri (1-1) LP Melancon (1-1)

HR 2 by their guys

On a day where the pet canines made up a significant part of the attendance, the Astros refused to win yet another series and for the third time in this young season, blew a lead held after the seventh inning. Brett Myers set the tone by struggling with his command early but limited the damage and had a lead when he left after six innings.

Abad came in and committed two errors on the same play, leading to another run. Melancon was called on to stop the bleeding but became a victim of chance and overuse as he was unable to get the ball over the plate consistently. He got one out in the eighth before four runs scored on three hits and a walk and the game was lost.

A gallant comeback in the ninth by the Astros was turned aside when Heath Bell struck out Matt Downs with the bases loaded.

This was a fairly ugly game but suspenseful, as it was clear the Astros pitchers were teetering on the edge of meltdown the whole way. Helped by an incredibly anemic Padres offense, Myers was able to get 5 Ks, most of them courtesy of an offspeed cutter. It was Melancon’s inability to throw strikes coupled with brutal fielding and mental errors that gave this one away when it had been in hand.

The Astros invade NYC (well, Flushing) and hope to slip a couple of M-80s in their plumbing, beginning Tuesday night. Follow it in the GZ.

Astros 7, Marlins 1

April 10, 2011
Minute Maid Park

W: J.A. Happ (1-1)
L: A. Sanchez (0-1)

Read about it in the GZ

J.A. Happ became the next Astro starter to perform well and the first to get a win in the 2011 season with the gem he pitched against the Marlins. After giving up a double and run-scoring single in the first, Happ was able to negotiate the vagaries of Jim Joyce’s enigmatic ‘strike zone’ and hold the Fishmen to just two hits and four walks before leaving the game in the eighth with a 7-1 lead.

This one was truly a team effort. Every starter had at least one hit; Happ became the third Astro pitcher to have two and he knocked in the go-ahead runs with a ringing double off of the Jut of Eternal Peril in the fourth inning. All told, the Astros slapped 16 hits and reduced Marlin CF Chris Coghlan to diving for balls like Flipper.

It wasn’t all a hit parade though. Threatening in the fifth, the Marlins had runners on first and second with no outs and the pitcher up, trailing 3-1. Expecting a bunt, Happ threw a fastball up and away, where Q took it and lasered a throw to catch Helms easing back to the bag for an electric pickoff that took the steam off of the Fish. Sanchez bunted foul to strike out and the threat was done.

The performance on the mound by Happ was the real story of the game. From midway in the second he was able to tease the hitters with his high fastball, then come in and down with the curve or cutter, tying them up and making them try to hit his pitches. Despite his four walks, Happ never gave in and he was comfortably pitching his game all the way through.

Hilarity and hijinks ensued in the bottom of the seventh in true Joycean fashion. Puzzling strike zone notwithstanding, HP Ump Jim Joyce felt the need to show us that it really wouldn’t be a game without an umpire when Marlin reliever Edward Mujica plunked Bill Hall on the ass with his first pitch. Confident that this was two-day-old retaliation for Hall’s slide into Hanley Ramirez, Joyce immediately ran Mujica to the consternation of many. In the ninth, Aneury Rodriguez put one on Gaby Sanchez’ posterior on a 2-2 pitch, his second one inside, and was ejected as well. Fortunately, the Iron Hand of Jim Joyce was there to Preserve Order and Safety, and the game continued with no further incident, except that both teams had to burn another reliever.

Next up are those whiny losers the FTC. Follow the fun in the Game Zone.