Damn Sam Fuld’s tiebreaking two-run homer in the ninth inning

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

The thing about Billy Beane is he knows that athletes make better baseball players than Astronauts. All I know is that if I were going to the Moon I would rather have Chad Qualls at the helm of my rocket ship than Eric O’Flaherty. Still, the hipster band of athletes from the San Francisco Bay Area spoiled Qualls’ attempt to pick up his 16th save by scoring three runs in the top of the 9th inning to turn a 2-3 deficit into a 5-3 lead and a 2 games to 1 series win for the visitors.

Astro starter Brad Peacock actually pitched fairly well, giving up 4 hits and a run while walking 5 batters and striking out 6. He also threw a wild pitch and hit a batter but he kept things mostly under control up until he gave way to Kevin Chapman in the 6th with the bases loaded and one out. Chapman was able to limit the damage to one run on a sacrifice fly before getting the next batter to fly out to shallow right field.

Robbie Grossman, Dexter Fowler, and Chris Carter all got 2 hits in the game. Carter connected on his 33rd long ball of the season with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, which was sweet, but too little too late. Thirty three homers ties Carter for second with Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Abreu, one behind MLB leader Nelson Cruz. Jose Altuve got one hit, he is still leading the majors in batting average and hits.

Thursday the Astros play host to the Arlington Rangers with Collin McHugh going against Nick Tepsech. Since it’s the Rangers, it will be on television on FSSW (Warning: turn the sound down).

Game Time: 3:43.
Weather: INDOORS
Attendance: 14,791

A’s 8, Astros 2
W:Samardzija (6-10)L:Feldman (7-10)
recap
box

Holy Moses this game wasn’t bad until the top of the ninth. Granted Samardzija had his way with most of the Astros hitters on the night but Feldman was able to keep them in it. Even Fields didn’t let things get out of hand. But, then came Sipp. Now, Sipp has pitched pretty well this season but he did not have anything good last night. NOTHING. I can’t stress that enough. And who doesn’t have a bad day every now and then? So, yeah, he was responsible for 4 of the runners getting on base that scored in the top of the 9th. My question is why didn’t Porter pull him. Why do you wait until the fourth straight walk to go get your pitcher? Why let things get out of hand on a night where your starter kept your team in the game barely? I’m not a big fan of Veras, I’m not even sure why, I just don’t get a good feeling when he comes out to pitch. Last night, Veras made me wish I had gone to bed early. Seriously, he couldn’t help Sipp out. He let all the runners on base score and added one of his own before getting three outs.

Now I realize that very few teams will win when they only score two runs, but I don’t know that this team has enough mental fortitude to come back from their pitchers giving up 5 runs in the 9th to pretty much put the game out of reach. The Astros had 7 hits on the night and 10 STRIKEOUTS. I would really prefer to see a game where the Astros hitters have more hits than strikeouts.

Bill Brown was feeling bad and wasn’t in the booth last night for the game (lucky him) and Dierker was there in his place. I really enjoyed Dierker. I don’t remember watching him from his previous gig but I did enjoy him there last night. Ashby is the weak link in the booth. I wish it could have been Dierker and Brown or Blum (I’d almost say Stanton but he doesn’t impress me much). Dierker shared some great stories and he even made Ashby sound not as bad as usual. Maybe it was the pitcher/catcher combo that worked.

On a personal note, I’m taking classes again this semester, I’ll finish one day in the far off future. I’m studying French and The Crusades. Surprisingly, the French class isn’t scaring me, but that history one is. 15 page paper that I’m going to have to present to my class. Woah!

Tuesday I’ll be at the ballpark and I’m hoping/praying/wishing the team does better because I deserve better after watching that whole game last night. Toodles.

Cleveland 3, Houston 1

Submitted by Reuben

It was a mix of good and bad Sunday afternoon in Cleveland, Ohio. The Astros tripled their hit total from each of their two previous games, but they also struck out 12 times and only scored 1 run. They mounted an impressive 9th-inning rally that brought them within a single of tying the game and a mere gapper away from taking the lead. But Fowler struck out to end it and in total they left 11 men on base.

Brett Oberholtzer notched another Quality Start™ but he ran out of gas in the 7th, allowing the 3rd run to score, and made a costly misplay on a comebacker in the 2nd that led to another run. Jose Altuve had 2 more hits to increase his league-leading AVG to .334 and stole a base to nudge his league-leading total to 47. However, Jose looks like he is slowing down, overall, and is probably exhausted from the grind of the season. A day off might do him a lot of good right now.

Corporan had a very nice day, going 1-for-1 with 2 walks and tagging out a runner at home who foolishly tried to score on a pitch that only bounced a few feet away. In the 7th, Corp hit a moon shot down the RF line that the Cleveland announcers, looking at the replay, thought was fair. Unfortunately, the Replay Umpires quickly decided it was foul, and though Corp walked on the next pitch, he was immediately erased when Castro grounded into a DP.

Bo Porter brought the entire team down into the clubhouse between the 2nd and 3rd innings. Who knows what prompted the bizarrely timed speed-meeting – Oberholtzer and Dominguez had both made stupid plays in the preceding half-inning – but in the end, it did not spur the Astros to victory. Not quite.
***

Futility Watch: The Astros’ decent road trip combined with another D’backs slide has them tied for 27th place at the moment. Boston has lost 8 in a row and seems eager to join the party despite their enormous payroll, and the fact that the Astros’ highest-paid player, Feldman, actually makes less money than the Red Sox’ clubhouse attendant. At 55-76, the Astros are on pace to finish 68-94, which would only be the 10th-most losses in club history. It would be nice if they can manage a 72-90 record. The 2000 Astros had that record, and then improved to 93 wins and a division championship the next year. Fingers crossed.

Astrals 5
Subcontinentals 1

contributed by NeilT

People ask me, what is Cleveland like? Cleveland, land of mystery, exotic, extravagant, elegant, eclectic, it is the city of a million faces and experiences. Cleveland! And of course there are the Subcontinentals, the baseball avatars of our City, with the stylized picture of the Father of our City, Gandhi, on their caps.

It is also a City of great spirituality, a home to all the major religions of the world, a place where individual and community harmony with the great mysteries is intrinsic. It is of this harmony, Ṛta, of which I would speak to my Houston sishya, for it is with this that any understanding of Cleveland must begin.

In the Vedic tradition, Ṛta is the proper functioning of cosmic order. It is a universal principal separate from any of the gods, though it is linked with the omniscient sky, the god Varuna. From the first this was a game of order and balance, with our very holy sadhu Carrasco walking Altuve in the first and Carter in the sixth, giving up a single to Marisnick in the third, and a Home Run to Gonzalez in the fifth.

But it is order from which harmony is derived, and it is the actions which conform to the proper cosmic order, dharma, from which holy baseball as the manifestation of cosmic harmony proceeds. Peacock allowed no base runners until the fifth, when the dharma of the Cleveland Brahmin Zach Walters provided a balancing home run.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Houston pitcher Peacock was removed for discomfort in the right forearm and replaced by Chapman, for whom much agarbathi was offered by the Houston fans. But Chapman showed good karma and allowed only one base runner on an Altuve error.

Again, Ṛta was restored in the seventh when the holy sadhu Carrasco was replaced by the sadhu Hagadone, and three up three downness was achieved.

Chapman was removed after the first out in the seventh, and was replaced by Fields. Again, the Houston fans in the stadium offered much agarbathi. The smell of rich incense filled the stadium like the air in Pasadena. Fields gave up a single with two Ks.

In the eighth, the sadhu Shaw replaced Hagadone, and again three up three downness was achieved. But it is the nature of all that there is a duality of order and chaos, and with two runners and no outs, both Subcontinental runners were caught stealing.

Chaos continued in the top of the ninth, though the Cleveland fans were chanting prayers for restoration of order. With the sadhu Cody Allen pitching, Carter walked and reached third with one out on a Santana throwing error. With Petit pinch running for Carter, Petit scored on a Perez throwing error. With Fowler at second, Castro walked. Fowler was out at home on a Castro ground ball. Was there some action in our Subcontinental’s past for which they must suffer? Of course, two caught stealings and two throwing errors. For the restoration of order Ṛta required a three run home run by Singleton. Namaste.

Qualls closed out the ninth. There are photographs of the holy Subcontinental pitchers here: http://www.joeyl.com/2012/05/1617/