Crawling From The Wreckage

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Dark Star in Game Recaps

Saturday May 9, 2009

Astros 5, Padres 4

WP: Hawkins (1-0) LP: Gregerson (0-3)

HOUSTON (SnS) – The Houston Astros overcame their sputtering offense, a combustible bullpen, and their clueless manager to hang on and defeat the abject loser San Diego Padres for the second night in a row, this time 5-4 before another sub-30,000 weekend crowd in the Juice Can. Carlos Lee and Miguel Tejada saved manager Cecil Cooper’s ass after a fucking embarrassing mental meltdown in the eighth inning, when a series of scary-bad bullpen choices by Cooper nearly single-handedly sunk his team and handed the Padres an undeserved win.

Speaking of the crowd, after some of this lackluster collection of Astros followers booed San Diego manager Bud Black for making a pitching change mid-at bat in the eight inning, like it was against the rules or something (and after their own skipper had made about 15 trips to the hill in the top half of the inning), local observers were heard to comment that it was just as well the Astros attendance is apparently plummeting faster than the commodities market, and it would probably have been better if only 10,000 or so screaming idiots had showed up.

In this middle game of this middling series, the Astros sent out recently banged up righty Brian Moehler (0-2, 14.00) against San Diego’s Kevin Correia (0-2, 5.92), a former SF Giant and Russ Ortiz wannabe. The game started off much as Friday’s contest, with two cumbersome, hapless offenses struggling mightily to suck at least somewhat less than the other.

Observations:
1.) The Padres uniforms don’t do it for me. Have the Padres ever had nice-looking uniforms? The pants, which I guess are light gold, look dingy white. I keep expecting this woman to show up.

2.) San Diego fans call 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff “The Crushin’ Russian” (things are relative in SD – The CR is currently hitting .230 with 1 HR), even though he is not Russian. He is Macedonian. Actually, he is from Newport Beach, CA, but you get my drift. Anyway, Padre fans probably think “Macedonian? Russian? Same thing, what’s the big deal?” I’ll bet the Macedonians could answer that. I have been trying to come up with a better name for Kouzmanoff, but I am not doing too well. All I’ve come up with so far is “The Macedonian Milquetoast” or “The Balkan Bust”.

3.) Watching Pence every night, I have been trying to think of the last successful player who also looked so fucking goofy all the time. There has probably been someone since, but one I thought of was Kent Tekulve, longtime Pirate reliever from a couple of decades ago. There was another player from around then named George Theodore, but he was really just a utility guy. Who Gunther really reminds me of is the geeky little dude from Sixteen Candles. . . as I recall he struck out a lot, too.

Anyway, back to the game. There was not much to choose between Moehler and Correia through the first five innings. Both allowed 2 hits and 0 runs.

The Padres broke through in the sixth, putting up a one-spot. Moehler, who had helped himself by knocking down a David Eckstein comebacker in the first, saved himself from further damage in this inning by starting a pretty 1-6-3 double play with men on 1st and 3rd, one out, and Adrian Gonzalez at the plate.

The Astros answered in the bottom of the inning, scoring a couple of runs on an RBI single by El Caballo and a sacrifice fly by Miguel Tejada.

Meanwhile, Moehler was pitching a gutty game, in only his second MLB start since coming off the disabled list. He worked out of another jam in the seventh by emphatically striking out Luis Gonzalez with men on 2nd and 3rd and two outs.

The Astros added an insurance run in the bottom of the 7th, and Moehler was clearly spent, so who does Cooper bring in to preserve the lead? LaTroy Hawkins, who had utterly shut down the Padres (on 11 pitches) in the 9th Friday night? No. Chris Sampson, he of the 1.89 ERA, who had pitched 3 strong innings Friday? No, but Sampson probably couldn’t go, anyway. Who Cooper did bring in was the hapless Geoff Geary, who tried to give away the lead almost immediately, by giving up a ringing double to pinch-hitter/hometown hero Chris Burke, and then leaving one up for Brian Giles, who drove it high and deep and about six feet to the right of the RF foul pole. Geary recovered from that long enough to retire Giles on a grounder, moving Burke to third. Then he surrendered a single to Eckstein, and it was 3-2. Cooper went out and got Geary, and brought in Alberto Arias, who looked good striking out Scott Hairston.

With two outs now and Adrian Gonzalez coming up, and Arias looking cocky and fired up out there, Cooper went out again and, doing his best Tony LaRussa impression, brought in lefty specialist Wesley Wright to face the lefty Gonzalez. Wright, who up to that point had held left-handed hitters to a paltry .471 batting average this season, promptly gave up a single to Gonzalez. Then Cooper brought in Hawkins, who didn’t do much better, giving up the go-ahead runs on a Chase Headly double that scored both Eckstein and Gonzalez.

So, bottom of the eighth, down 4-3, and the Astros are facing some nondescript Padre reliever. Bourn and Pence walked; then, after a wild pitch, Carlos Lee drove in Bourn with a single to right, and Tejada plated Pence on an infield grounder.

With the lead back in hand, The Hawk went out in the ninth and shut down the Padres to earn the vultured win. The only rent in the fabric was another solid double to left by Burke, who apparently was intent on delivering a resounding “Fuck you” to all his Houston critics. Well, great game, Burke. And, oh yeah, you lost, asshole.

Lance Berkman missed his second straight game with a sore wrist. It is hoped some combination of Darrin Erstadt, Jimmy Wynn, and Mahatma Ghandi can replace Berkman’s bat in the lineup until he recovers.

Gotta Cheer Up Now

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Dark Star in Game Recaps

Friday May 8, 2009

Astros 2, Padres o

WP: Rodriguez (3-2) LP: Gaudin (0-2) SV: Hawkins (4)

HOUSTON(SnS) — The woeful Houston Astros, nearly bereft of offense and with a blown out bullpen, a shaky starting staff, and a manager with the foresight of a fruit fly, hung on to edge the even woefuller San Diego Padres here Friday night in the Juice Can, 2-0

Before a considerably less than sellout crowd of 28,000, give or take, it was Wanderful Rodriguez (2-2, 2.19), Houston’s best starter, vs. the Padres’ Chad Gaudin (0-1, 5.06), a good Catholic boy from New Orleans who looks like your average white supremicist nitwit from Bumfuck, Idaho.

Wandy got off to a shaky couple of innings to start out, working out of jams in both the first (thanks to another Michael Bourn circus catch on the hillside in center field) and second innings. After that, though, the diminutive Houston lefty settled into the ol’ rocking chair, and just started dealing. The Friars are not exactly an offensive powerhouse (.216 team batting average going in); after the early difficulties, Rodriguez retired the next 16 San Diego hitters in a row. Gaudin, meanwhile, was nearly as good, mixing an assortment or riding sliders and teasing fastballs to hold the punchless Astros, tonight featuring a Berkman-less batting order, scoreless through four.

At one point, FSSW TV viewers were treated to an interview, by correspondent Patti Smith, with a bunch of sorority babes from A&M who were following the game intently from the stands, festooned in pink sweatshirts that siginified something or other. Don’t get me wrong, the sorority spokesgirl explained what they were doing there, I just couldn’t make any sense of it. At one point, she said, “Well, we’re Zetas,” like I should know what that means. Actually, I do know what that used to mean, but it’s probably not something you’d want to advertise on national regional television.

Down on the field, the game continued apace. The Astros finally broke through in the fifth inning. Pudge Rodriguez got hit by a pitch leading off. After Wandelicious fucked up a sacrifice bunt attempt, Kaz Matsui drew a walk, then Bourn was retired 3-1 on a very close play at first. So, two outs, men on 2nd and 3rd, and coming to the plate is one Hunter A. Pence, possibly one of the worst choices for third place hitter in the history of Western civilization. Pence!!, who had a flailing strikeout in a similar situation in the third, started off this crucial at bat by swinging wildly at two sliders outside, immediately putting himself in the hole, 0-2. Then amazingly, Pam Gardner’s Wet Dream took three straight similar pitches. . . before swinging at a fourth, which had edged in just a little closer to the plate than the others. He went the other way with it, no doubt against Cecil Cooper’s orders, and snuck a worm-burner between 1st and 2nd, plating the first two runs of the game.

Pence!!, by the way, is currently sporting what he calls a “rally” mohawk hairdo, which presumably helped him in the 5th inning at bat. I don’t know. I do know the mohawk makes him look even more ridiculous than he normally does, which is kind of hard to imagine.

Wandy, meanwhile, continued to be wonderful. Through eight, he still had the shutout (which was a good thing, because after the little scoring flurry in the fifth, the Astros offense went immediately back into hibernation), but he had logged 116 pitches by then and, even though he still appeared to be throwing free and easy, manager Cooper, going by the book, pulled him. Never mind that the book Cooper goes by is more like a Hunter Thompson novel than anything Connie Mack or Branch Rickey or John J. McGraw ever wrote.

Against the fervent protestations of color commentator Jim DeShaies, among others (I was throwing shit at my TV screen), Cooper brought in LaTroy Hawkins to close things out in the ninth. Thankfully, The Hawk was up to the task, and retired three straight to complete the combined shutout and earn himself a save.

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April 24-26, 2009 — Brewers @ Astros

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Dark Star in Series Previews

SEASONS IN HELL Vol. I, No. 1

Brewers (6-9) @ Astros (6-10) April 24-26, 2009

Friday          7:05 p.m.         FOX
Saturday    6:05 p.m.          FOX
Sunday        1:05 p.m.           FOX

The Milwaukee Brewers roll into Houston Friday for a weekend three game set-to with the Astros.

Up to Tuesday, the Brewskies had been on an odd run of consistency this season – in every series (@SF, CHI, CIN, @NYM), they had a W-L record of 1-2. But they went into Philadelphia and took two of three, so perhaps things are on an upswing for them. At any rate, the Brewskies have been something of a disappointment so far this year, so I went searching around some of the Brewers fansites to see if Milwaukee fans were gripping as badly at their team’s early season fucking around as many Astrofanz seem to be at theirs.

The answer is, it is hard to tell. . . for one thing, if one is used to the level of intercourse at SnS, a lot of what passes for ‘intelligent fan discussion’ out there on the interwebs leaves a lot to be desired. Also, outside of Sen. McCarthy and Jeffrey Dahmer, and I guess Ed Gein, I’ve never really heard of a seriously pissed-off Wisconsoner. It is a stereoype, but I picture the typical Brewer fan as some pasty, pudgy guy who works for the paper mill and has brats for lunch and beer for dinner and goes to the park and cheers for the home team, regardless. On the other hand, if my team had emerged from 15+ years of consistently horrible play and management to go where the Milwaukee team appears to be now – on the verge of regular contention, loaded with young talent and with more on the way – hell, I would be pretty damn contented, too. Pass me a Pabst there, Leonard, would yah? Oh yaah, and a couple of brats, with ‘kraut on the side.

In beer and brat land they do have Brewerfan.net, a decent enough site which is probably the closest thing to what a wandering SnSer would look for in non-fanboy discussion with an occasional forum meltdown or two, and a lot of silly bullshit as well, of course. And, yes, it appears Brewerfan is gripping, a little.

However, the common thinking among Brewer aficianados is that beyond the Philadelphia series, they are coming up on an easy stretch in their schedule where they can get well and make up some ground on the division leaders (after the Brewers finish this weekend with Houston, they have a couple of series with the Pirates and Dickities, sandwiched around one with Arizona.) They envision going 2-1 in Houston, worst case scenario.

That Brewerfan equates the Astros with the Pirates and the Dickities and an easy part of their schedule might be a little ironic, given where they were not so long ago, but it might also be more than a little accurate at this point, at least generally speaking. Despite the heroics in the first two games of the Dodgers series, I doubt the Astros in their current configuration put much fear into any team’s heart. The interesting thing to me is that Milwaukee has been pushing for a few years now to emerge from the primordial goo in the depths of the Central Division (Pirates, Reds) and move into the Astros-Cardinals-FTCubs class of perennial division contender. At the same time, while the Co-ards and the FTCubs seem to be well-entrenched at the top of the division for many seasons to come, the Astros have been fighting what is in a way the exact opposite battle the Brewers have been. Houston has been struggling to keep from slipping down into the tar pits as mightily as the Brewers have been fighting to pull the Astros in and climb out over the top of them. And while fan perception means shit 99.99999 100% of the time, the realization, coming probably a couple of seasons late, that no one else looks at the Astros anymore as anything but a mediocre also-ran gives me pause; because it might not be long before what one has to look forward to at the beginning of each season is swimming around in the creasote all summer with the Pirates and the Dickities, looking up at eveyone else, including the Brewers. Fuck.

PITCHING MATCHUPS
Friday April 24 (7:05 p.m.)
Houston Felipé Paulino (0-0, 0.00)
After a couple of good starts in Round Rock, Paulino was called up and was excellent in his first outing against the Dickities last week, allowing 0 runs in 6 innings. He has a lot of steam on his fastball and an idea of what he is trying to do out there. The only nit-pick here is 100 pitches in six innings; he only walked two, though. I hope he can eventually go deeper into games.

Milwaukee Yovani Gallardo, RHP (1-1, 4.58)
Gallardo is emerging as a solid middle-of-the-rotation guy, and is coming off of a six inning, no run performance himself, in New York. He has a good breaking ball to go with a plus heater, and he has had success against the Astros in the past, including eight shutout innings in his only start at MMPUS, a win back at the end of 2007.

Saturday April 25 (6:05 p.m.)
Houston Mike Hampton (1-1, 3.12)
It is not a stretch to say Hampton has been a pleasant surprise so far this season. I’m not sure what was expected of him, but after getting knocked around a bit in his first start at St. Louis, he has pitched quite well in his last two outings. He appears to be mostly a 6-inning guy these days, but if the Astros can get 30 or so starts out of him this season at this level, that would be, well, nice.

Milwaukee Jeff Suppan, RHP (1-2, 8.56)
Jeff Suppan has been a pretty good starting pitcher for a long time now. Pretty good, but not good – as a 4.66 career ERA would attest. He gives up a fair amount of hits and a lot of home runs, but usually manages to hang around long enough to pile up some career wins (129) and losses (125). In his 2+ year stint in Milwaukee, he is 1 game under .500 (23-24) with a 4.91 ERA. On any given night, Suppan might pitch you a gem (last start vs. NY 6 IP, 2 ER), or he might hit the showers early (first two starts vs. SF and CHI 7.2 IP, 11 ER total). Jeff Suppan is the walking definition of mediocre. He has had a rough time of it with the Astros in the past (2-7, 5.34, and 1-2, 6.26 in MMPUS).

Sunday April 26 (1:05 p.m.)
Houston Russ Ortiz (1-0, 5.93)
Ortiz has not been very impressive so far, in two relief appearances and, most recently, two starts. He did pick up a win last time out, in a 5 inning, 5 walk, 116 pitch slopfest against the Dodgers. The bullpen almost lost it for him, anyway. About the most optimistic thing that can be said is that Ortiz’ most recent start was better than his first one, against Pittsburgh, when he could only manage 4.2 innings and left in a flurry of hits and loud outs with men on base. So, he is progressing.

Milwaukee Manny Parra, LHP (0-3, 8.16)
This guy was supposed to be the second coming of, I don’t know, Mike Caldwell or Teddy Higuera or somebody. He impressed many in the Austin/Round Rock/Pflugerville contingent by throwing a perfect game against the Express back in mid-2007, while pitching for the Nashville club. But, wow, Parra has failed to deliver on the promise so far. Last year, in his first full season, he managed a 10-8, 4.39 in 29 starts, but averaged 5 innings a start. He was pulled from the rotation the last three weeks of the season, with the Brewers battling the steM for a wild card spot. So far this season he has been terrible, although in his second outing, vs. the Dickities, he managed to go 6 innings and give up 3 ER.

INJURIES
Houston – Brandon Backe (strained intracoastal muscle, that’s the one that starts off mid-knee, runs down and under and around your foot, and then runs up your east side), 15-day DL, may return mid-May (supposedly), I don’t think anyone is holding their breath over it; Brian Moehler (mild knee sprain), 15-day DL, returns mid-May, is throwing on the side; Doug Brocail (rotator cuff), 15-day DL, returns Sunday (26th), any help in the bullpen is welcomed.

Milwaukee – Hells Bells Hoffman (strained obelisk, that’s the one that runs from your scrot – never mind), 15-day DL, due back Sunday (26th), the Brewers need him to anchor the bullpen, which has been fucking ‘orrible to this point. (That was the Cockney accent I’ve been working on, you know, like, “‘Ello, guv’ner” on the Raisin Bran box. What do you think?)

LOOKING UP?
It is hard to say what, if anything, we should take from the Dodgers series. We saw that the Astros can come from behind when they need to, but I don’t think that was a big question going in. And though I’ll never be able to erase from my mind the images of LaTroy Hawkins blowing save after save for the FTCubs in a stretch run a few years back, we saw for sure that the big righthander is a viable backup option at closer if/when Valverdegäaven is hurt. And it looks for sure like the Astros have a pretty good bench. Right now guys like Keppinger and Michaels are really helping. On the other hand, carrying an inconsistent offense is not their job. If it ends up that it is, well, not so good. Beyond that, I just don’t know.

I do know this. Had the Astros lost the Dodger series – the one coming into this one – this series preview would be a whole lot more morose than it already is.

A CAVEAT
By the way, I would like to apologize for this preview to one and all. I feel like I have set a pretty high standard for myself in the past, and this effort falls far short of it.

There is a good reason, one which I would very much prefer to keep to myself. I will give my preview writing a better effort next time around. Perhaps things will be better then. Ex adversum adveho vires quod décor.

THE WEATHER
Friday evening will be mostly cloudy (and, needless to say, muggy) with a low only in the high 60s, and south winds at 10-15 mph. Saturday evening will be the same. Sunday will be mostly sunny, with a high of 81. Pretty decent weather to get out and watch baseball in.

I predict the Astros will, due to either “bad weather” or “high temperatures”, have the roof closed at MMPUS for at least part of each of the three games in this series.

Brewers win the series, 2-1.

“Glaciers melting in the dead of night
And the superstars sucked into the
Supermassive black hole.”

**********

brewers suck, bullshit, fucked up

Hey, Bob Watson! Hit Me A Foamer, Man!

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Dark Star in From Left Field

NOTE: Some of the various threads of this story began floating around in my head over a year ago, around the time I posted an article about George Bjorkman and myself here. Over the intervening months, I thought several times about sitting down and trying to pull everything together; but I never did, because A.) I knew it would be a lot of work and, B.) I feared some of it might be painful. I basically resigned myself to the idea this story would never be told in its entirety. No great loss, there.

Then Ike happened. Sitting around alone in the hot, almost dark every night for over a week (the family had evacuated to Rayne, LA), listening to the thrum of a generator creating just enough juice to run a refrigerator, a few lamps, and a few box fans; with enough left over to power up this old Dell Inspiron laptop/boat anchor I had sitting around, well, some force compelled me to sit down each night and go about lashing this thing all together.

So I did. It is a little dark in a few places, convoluted in a few others. If you decide to read it, keep the context and setting of when and where it was written in mind, and maybe it will make a little more sense. Or not.

Anyway, everything in it is factual – all this stuff happened. I might have altered an ancillary detail or two in the interest of flow, but that is it. I did change a few names, not so much to protect the innocent – I don’t know any of those, and certainly no one in this story is anything close to it. No, I changed them on the off chance one of the principals might come across this on the interwebs, and feel compelled to come after me, with the intention of kicking my ass.

So, in a way, I guess I am protecting the innocent. That being myself.

Astros @ Nationals – Fading Into The Break (July 11-13, 2008)

Posted on July 10, 2008 by Dark Star in Series Previews

THE LAST RIDE

Houston Astros (42-50) at Washington Nationals (35-57)

Nationals Park
1500 South Capitol St., SE
Washington, DC 20003

********

This is the last series before the All Star break, and it is easily among the most meaningless series being played this weekend by anyone anywhere in baseball on the entire planet.

You have the Astros coming in to Washington after a 10-16 June and a 2-7 start to July, floundering about the cellar of the National League West (Central, whatever.) If everything goes perfectly for them the rest of the way – the offense becomes consistent, the pitching magically becomes consistently effective, and a couple of teams ahead of them stumble – the Astros are looking at an outside chance of finishing in fourth place in their division. If they are really, really lucky.

The Nationals were out of their division’s race before the season ever started. They, too, had a terrible June (9-18) and are having a terrible July, and should soon start bringing up prospects to try out with a look to the future. They are going nowhere presently. They have lost seven of the last eight, thirteen of their last eighteen. Lovely.

No one will be watching these games except the hardcore fans of each team. And maybe not so many of those. The only thing that will keep me inside this weekend, in front of the TV and watching these games, is rain, and lots of it. And right now, it doesn’t look that is going to happen. I suppose it is possible by then that Hurricane Bertha, which is, as I write this, tracking in the general direction of the upper Eastern Seaboard, will make these games seem even more irrelevant than they already are.

Whatever. Wake me up when September comes.

Rangers @ Astros – Home Again, After Another F.U. Road Trip. . . Ratts (June 24-26, 2008)

Posted on June 22, 2008 by Dark Star in Series Previews

OUT OF THE CELLAR

Coahuila-Tejas Rangers (39-38) at Houston Astros (35-41)

Minute Maid Park
501 Crawford St.
Houston, TX 77002

********

Round and round
What comes around goes around

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