Marlins 2
Astros 0
contributed by NeilT
I was really excited about this recap. I had most of it written two weeks ago, and it was brilliant: politically astute, timely, and hilariously funny. Then I figured out that the Astros didn’t play the Blue Jays until next week.
Stupid, too, because I really knew they were playing the Marlins. I had tickets to tonight’s game, but sold them. One of the guys in our ticket group sent out a request for tickets, and I said that I would sell mine. I didn’t want to, really, but I got this nice note from the buyer saying that he appreciated the tickets. His nephew was a baseball fan and was coming to town. I felt ok about that, but figured the guy could have walked up to the box office and got pretty good seats.
So I came home, took a nap, poured a scotch and sat on the back porch and listened to the game. I had two scotches into the 8th inning. I spent a lot of the game when not reading petting my dog, Lola, who has always been a good baseball dog. No head for statistics though.
When I wasn’t petting Lola or listening to the game I read my book, Paris to the Pyrenees by David Downie. I picked up the book at random at Brazos Books. Downie, it turns out, is a beat up old atheist, maybe my age, who had moved to France when younger and proceeded to eat and drink himself to near death. The book is about his pilgrimage along the French leg of the Camino de Santiago, as a kind of health regimen. It is something I would do in a heartbeat if I had the money and the time. A friend of mine started the Spanish leg this year, from Roncevaux across the north of Spain, but gave it up after two weeks because of blisters. He told me I could come along, but I didn’t, and never will.
My son’s former Boy Scout troop is doing the Spanish leg this year on mountain bikes, which I bet will piss off a bunch of walking pilgrims no end, and should. Being part of the world’s most affluent Boy Scout troop was actually kind of fun though.
So tonight I sat on the back porch, petted Lola and thought about how she was an 11-year old dog of a breed the average life-span of which is 12 years, and drank 15-year old Highland Park. It was a melancholy sort of night, and a good game for that sort of thing, with Keuchel pitching well and Hand pitching better. Keuchel had plenty of runners, and got out of Dallas Kerfuffles in the 5th and 6th with double plays. I hope that’s the real Dallas Keuchel. That Dallas Keuchel is a good major leaguer, not a superstar, but a guy who will give up a couple of runs but keep you in the game. Which he did.
But there weren’t a lot of hits. Altuve and Petit got random singles, and Castro chased Hand with an 8th inning double. Carter, who has been on fire for July, walked twice. Maybe Hand was brilliant, maybe the Astros offense sucks without Fowler. Sucks more.
Kris came home in the 8th and made pasta and salmon, and the radio broadcast played songs by Bobby Goldsboro, which I hadn’t heard since my childhood, and would have been happy not to have heard tonight.
Three up, three down in the 9th, and the ‘Stros have lost three in a row.