Texas 4
Houston 2

contributed by NeilT

Last weekend I went down to Houston to welcome the NRA to our great state, and show off the new toy the fine folks at LaRue loaned me. Howdy and welcome to Texas, folks! Our name means friends! It would have been better though if the targets had been more clearly identified as Democrats.

Anyway, while I was at the Brown Center at the trade show I met this fine-looking filly manning the Gun Grease booth. She told me she performed most nights onstage at a place called TC’s, and Michael Berry said he’d take me over, but Anita said Not No but H-E-double-L No. Me and Miss LaLoosh did talk a bit of baseball statistics, which I wasn’t much up on but she knew coming and going. Did you know that during my tenure as governor our Texas economy leads all other states combined in creation of American League jobs? I didn’t know that, but it’s because we have a balanced budget and a surplus.

So I came back to Houston this weekend to root for Texas’s team, the Rangers. For right-thinking people, Houston’s not Paint Creek, or even Arlington. It’s chock-full of Democratic mayors who might run for state office or try to be a den mother. We here in Texas will never bend over to the social and economic agenda of Western Europe, or of Houston.

Plus I have to pull for the Rangers ‘cause my good buddy Nolan pulls for the Rangers. Miss LaLoosh said last weekend that she was an Astros fan, but that as a special favor she’d help me pull for the Rangers. Anita told her thanks very much but I didn’t need help.

Baseball’s not as good a Texas sport as football, or just taking a jog to shoot some coyotes, but it has its place. And during my tenure as Governor, the Texas team leads the Houston team 43-31. That’s because we have a balanced budget and a surplus. And tonight, during my tenure as governor, the Rangers won 4-2, with 3 home runs. It’s great to be a Texan.

Angels 6, Astros 5

contributed by Mr. Happy

I wasn’t able to stay in the GameZone this evening because work had my goodbye party last night. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a big fan of going away work parties. You’ll stay in touch with the few with whom you have things in common while the rest will drop into oblivion. Most people come to those things out of some sense of duty, but they don’t really want to be there—they have lives and other things to do after work. I understand.

I wasn’t here long enough to develop any deep bonds anyway, so I could have passed on it. I can’t wait to get on with the next chapter of my life. I’m even excited about driving from Missoula to Toledo in a U-Haul truck with my few belongings that are here with me (the bulk of my stuff is scattered in three different places in Napa and Louisiana) while towing my car. Just me and my iPod. For over 1,800 miles.

Harrell had zippo command tonight-106 tosses and six free passes in five frames. And it seemed that slowing the game down as he did didn’t seem to help him either. Harrell is the principal reason why the nine inning game lasted 4:07. I prefer when Harrell works quickly as he usually does. Harrell has bouts of command problems, and I hope that doesn’t derail him. I like Harrell and believe that he could be a solid 3-4 on a good team.

Clemens is still raw, but I really like his stuff. That yellow hammer is nasty. And he can gas it up there well enough to blow it past hitters. Ambriz had nothing tonight. I have to hand it to Philip Humber tonight. I really believe that had he failed tonight in the bully, he would have been released, but he pitched well, although the damage had already been done. 11 walks tonight? Jeebus.

I don’t know what the post-game explanation of the brouhaha that broke out when Porter replaced Wright without him throwing a single pitch was, but it seemed to me that the rule clearly prohibited Porter from doing what he did. I’d have protested too. The past few days haven’t been the umpires’ finest hour. Frieri has electric nasty stuff.

Astros shut down Angels 3 – 0

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

For years I was a Scott Tissue man, until one day I actually thought about what I was buying and was instantly captivated by the notion of a butt maintenance material so lithe and supple that it could only be described as Angel soft. What a fine product it is. Still, there is something wrong with that name. Toilet paper is used for… well, we all know what toilet paper is used for. And that act shouldn’t be associated with angels or The Angels. Butt, then The Angels do have their Pujols, so it kind of makes sense.

Bud Norris was the model of efficiency, throwing only 84 pitches in 8 plus innings, just 77 pitches through the first 8 innings, thus providing the relief staff with some much needed rest. He got a lot of support from the defense throughout the night. The Astros were stellar in turning four double plays, taking their league leading total to 46 on the year. Bud, who raised his record to 4 wins and 3 losses, got into a little trouble in the 9th, allowing runners to reach the corners with no outs before giving way for Jose Veras to come in and save the game for him. And save the game he did. Veras is pretty iffy as a closer but he was good last night. First striking out Trumbo then inducing a double play out of Howie Kendrick to end the game and preserve the win for Bud.

The Astros got the scoring started in the third with two runs following three doubles in a row. Carter added a third and final run in the 5th with his 8th homer of the year. The Angels got on the board in the 7th when Josh Hamilton hit his 3rd home-run of the season and upped his average to .205. (Meanwhile, Pujols is batting a paltry .240. The lack of production from these very well paid athletes is unexpected but welcome everywhere outside of the L.A. area.)

The home plate ump, Bill Welke proved he is just as blind as his brother Tim, and needs to be singled out for his ridiculously bad out call on a suicide squeeze play in the Astros half of the eighth. Replay after replay from every angle possible made it clear that Conger missed the tag and that Paredes touched the plate. It was obvious to everyone but Bill Welke.

Fortunately, the blown call did not come back to haunt the Astros. However, it was a little tense when the tying run was on first in the ninth with a pitcher known to blow saves on the mound. But Veras was true to his task and did not let the team down. Tonight the Astros go for their first series sweep of the year when Lucas Harrell squares off against Jason Vargas.

Astros 7, Angels 6

Contributed by Reuben

Marwin said knock you out! The Astros came at the Angels with a versatile attack Tuesday, employing power, speed, and error-inducing juju on the way to their first comeback win of the season. Jordan Lyles got his first W, settling in after allowing a 2-out, 3-run homer in the 1st to the en fuego Mark Trumbo that barely stayed fair. A 1st-inning deficit like 3-0 has become an all too familiar sight this year. Credit Lyles and the Astro hitters for not letting it bring them down.

New #3 hitter Jose Altuve immediately began chipping away at the lead, launching a full-count solo HR to left off of CJ Wilson with 2 outs in the 1st. After a quiet 2nd, Brandon Barnes led off the Astro 3rd with a sharp 1st-pitch single. Robbie Grossman laid down a beautiful sac bunt and beat it out when the catcher, Conger, picked up the ball bare-hand but couldn’t get a grip on it. He was given an error; I could see it going as a hit, though, as it was not a sure out even if he fielded it cleanly. Conger got another error on the next play, as he threw down to 2nd after Paredes missed a bunt attempt; Barnes was way off the bag and just took off for 3rd, the throw bounced, and the SS Aybar couldn’t field it in time to prevent him from moving up. Paredes would then double on a fly ball over the head of former Astro JB Shuck, scoring Barnes, and Altuve drove in Grossman with an infield single.

At this point the score was tied and the Astros had runners on the corners with nobody out. Then JD Martinez, fresh off the DL, struck out swinging at a neck-high fastball. Then Carlos Corporan struck out, and once again an all-too familiar feeling was coming on, as it seemed like they would squander a golden opportunity to take the lead. But the die landed on “6” this time (1-5 all being strikeout) and Chris Carter walloped one of his mighty home runs, this one a bullet line drive into the Crawford Boxes, and suddenly the Astros had come from down 3-0 all the way to a 6-3 lead.

In the meantime, Lyles was pitching very well. He was getting ground-outs and strikeouts left and right, throwing 93, 94 and mixing in his breaking balls nicely. In the 5th he ran into a little trouble that wasn’t really his fault. Jimmy Paredes Pence’d a fly ball into a double, and one batter later, Mike Trout was awarded first base after the umpire declared that Lyles’ inside pitch had hit him – much to the surprise of Trout, who had stepped away like he was casually gathering himself for the next pitch. That brought Albert Pujols to the plate representing the tying run. Undaunted, Lyles got him to fly out to the adventuresome Paredes, and then got Trumbo to ground into a 6-4.

The rest of the game almost felt like it would breeze by, but a solo homer off Keuchel in the 6th and a 2-run homer off Blackley in the 8th would bring the Angels to 6 runs. Luckily, the Astros had scraped together an insurance run in the 7th, thanks to Grossman, who singled, stole 2nd, stole 3rd, and scored on the errant throw by Conger. Yes, poor Hank Conger was charged with 3 errors in the game. That probably doesn’t happen very often. This one was a bit of a fluke, as either his hand or the ball grazed the bat of the batter, JD Martinez, as he threw down to 3rd.

By the way, Hector Ambriz pitched very well in his relief outing. He entered in the 7th, retired Trout, Pujols, Hamilton, and Trumbo, 3 of those by strikeout. He had them completely fooled by his slider, and he was spotting his fastball well at around 93-94. With two outs in the 8th, Howie Kendrick hit a grounder up the middle that Cedeno fielded, but then couldn’t get a grip on it to make a throw. It was scored a hit, which is a shame, because the next batter homered off Blackley, hanging Ambriz with an undeserved earned run.

Finally, Jose Veras, deliverer of a post-game closed-door speech after the loss on Sunday, came on to save the game in the 9th, and thankfully, he did it with a minimum of drama. Shuck grounded out, Aybar, hackin’ away, popped out, and Trout struck out on a beautiful 3-2 slider, eliciting a passionate double fist-pump from Corporan that almost brought tears to my eyes. Yay, winning!

Detroit 9, Houston 0

W: Verlander (4-2)
L: Humber (0-7)

When I was 11 or 12 I somehow ended up playing on a church league basketball team. I have no idea how this happened – I didn’t go to church, and although I was big for my age and athletic, I really wasn’t much of a basketball player at all. I couldn’t dribble, couldn’t shoot, and I guess I could sorta rebound if the ball came to me because I was a little taller than most other kids, but that was all I brought to the court.

We were told that there were two teams and two levels in this league, A and B. B was for the younger kids, and A was for the high school guys. We found out the truth at our first game, when it was revealed that the B team was just the other high school guys who weren’t on the A team for some unknown reason. I think our season was eight games, and I remember getting beat regularly by scores like 110-4, 108-6, that sort of thing. We did get ten points once, but I don’t think any team scored less than a hundred on us.

My frustration was extreme, and being the preteen smartass I was, I ended up taking it out physically on other players. I’d foul the hell out of them, go up for rebounds with the only purpose to rake an elbow across someone’s face or drag a knee into their groin. It was very difficult for me to deal with, and I was a real piece of shit kid, so coupling those things made those games slightly more adventurous than they would’ve been otherwise.

I loved to fight though. Nothing made me smile more than when some guy decided he wanted to throw down with me. Looking back on things, and my outlook on life until I was, shit – lots older – I don’t know how I’m still alive and without a police record.

I’ve seen at least my share of death, disease, pain and horror. I’ve dodged life-threatening circumstances too many times to count, and not all of them came to me because of my big mouth and tendency to explode first and pick up pieces later. Time and the miracles of modern medicine have helped me to dial this back to the levels that everyone else probably operates under, but sometimes I miss barely holding back that bright edge. Sometimes I miss scaring the living shit out of people.

Which brings us to our little four-game set with the big, bad, scary Tigers. Did we expect to win one of these? I doubt it. Did we expect to at least make them competitve? Ennh. Maybe one of them, but surprisingly the first two were tight contests. The last two though, against Scherzer and Verlander – those were going to be fuckstompings of the First Order and sadly, the ones we will remember the most.

Detroit didn’t need Verlander for this one, and Houston probably would’ve rolled over if Mrs. Verlander had been pitching, but she wasn’t and this one was nothing but ugly from the beginning. A quick two-run shibby by Prince Fielder in the first was the first punch in the face, the one that got your attention. After that the Tigers batted around in the second and added five more. An hour in and two innings done, but so were the Astros on this bright spring day.

Verlander gave up a couple of walks and another runner reached on an error by Fielder by the seventh. Thus far it seemed likely that the Astros would be no-hit, if for no other reason than the amazing play made by Cabrera in the fifth.

It was beginning to look like Leyland would have a tough call to make in the ninth because his pitch count was going to be high when Pena finally broke up the no-hitter. After that the visitors banked the plane in and landed the four-game sweep.

When you reduce it to its elemental level, baseball is about hope. Right now, frustration is settling everywhere like a thick mist of dust. Houston has lost ten of eleven, four straight, and 18 of its last 22. The so-called pitching staff is being reworked to try to shake some of that cloud away, but it’s not going to disappear soon. We’re at the point we knew would come, where some of the early experiments failed, but we didn’t expect that point to come just yet. It’s here though, and it’s time for us to stand in there and take our beating while we try to keep that flicker of hope sheltered from the assault. While this numbing pain is being inflicted, it sure would make it easier to get some kind of reassurance that there is a plan, and that there are signs of promise instead of an endless future of these teams going all Mr. Blonde on us.

Too bad, suckers. It’s never, ever going to be easy. Pain and fear are the other side of the coin, and you’re either in it until it flips or too weak for the task. Buy the ticket, take the ride.