A’s sweep Astros again.

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

Yesterday, as I was working there was a game being played between the Astros and the A’s. I missed it but here are a few things I found out about it:

Jed Lowrie’s new club has the best record in in the AL, his old club has the worst record in the AL. The Astros are on a pace to lose 116 games. Jed Lowrie must be a happy man to be on a contending team after spending last year on the worst team in the majors. In the entire history of MLB the Astros have only beaten the A’s once in twelve times. A’s general manager Bill Beane must be some kind of a genius or something.

Poor old Bud Norris dropped to 2 – 2 while getting hammered for 6 runs before getting pulled in the first inning. Meanwhile, the chemically enhanced Bartolo Colon: raised his record to 2 – 0, scattering 4 hits and 1 run over his 6 innings of work in picking up the win.

The Astros tried to make a late comeback but it was not enough. Altuve raised his batting average to .365 after going 3 for 5 with a run and a RBI. Not much else to be said about the Astros.

I could rant about how Bud “Ugly” Selig is a corrupt miscreant and Jim Crane is his personal butt wiper but that would be like ranting about water being wet. So I’ll save that for later.

A’s 4, Astros 3

Contributed by Reuben

Since the Astros and A’s are both on the AL West now, it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing plenty of Oakland reliever Sean Doolittle, so I won’t make this recap a lengthy string of references to the Pixies album of the same name – although it is a damn fine album and a very funny name for a modern-day baseball player. I’m sure there will be other, more relevant opportunities for that in the future.

This was a pretty good game, considering the Astros lost. Brad Peacock flashed a lot of promise- mixing a consistent 93-mph fastball that seemed to jump at hitters with a great curveball. Over the first four innings, he allowed just 2 hits and struck out 6. The A’s did manage to scrape together a run in the 4th when Peacock had some serious trouble preventing baserunners from taking extreme liberties right under his nose.

But the 5th is when it really started to fall apart. Peacock struck out the 1st batter, then gave up a double to Chris Sabo tribute player Alex Sogard (who had already tripled in the game). The next batter, the suddenly-playing-like-Ty-Cobb-reincarnated Coco Crisp, hit a ball to the right-center gap that Rick Ankiel had some major indecision on… it looked like he might have been able to catch it, but at the last second he seemed to decide to play the carom, then sort of slapped at the ball with his bare hand as it hit off the fence… at any rate, not one of his finer defensive moments, and the result was an RBI triple for Cobb, er Crisp. After a walk to the next batter, Peacock was lifted for Dallas Keuchel, who gave up an RBI single to Seth Smith, he of the lifetime .205/.277/.332 mark vs. lefties. That gave the A’s a 3-2 lead. The next play looked like it would extend the lead, but Matt Dominguez made yet another unbelievable play, scooping a grounder near the 3rd base line and making a terrific throw to Castro to nail the runner coming in from 3rd. As Ashby and Blum noted, the vast majority of 3Bmen would have just taken the sure/easy out at 1st and allowed the run to score. But Dominguez went after it with no hesitation, but no wildness either, just an outstanding play to shut down a rally and keep the deficit at 1.

That was almost enough, too, as Keuchel kept the A’s in check for the next 2+ innings, and Carlos Pena hit an opposite-field HR off the lefty, Doolittle, to tie it up in the 8th. As Blum had pointed out earlier, the Astros were one of just 3 teams in MLB to not have a come-from-behind victory of any kind this season. After Pena’s unlikely shot, it seemed like perhaps this would be the night. Finally, here was some exciting baseball, a tight game, lots of tense at-bats and great clutch plays in the field. I didn’t even fall asleep, despite it creeping quickly towards 1am my time.

Porter brought in Rhiner Cruz with 1 out in the 8th. “Just throw strikes, Rhiner” I thought (perhaps out loud). He did, mostly, pumping a bunch of 95-97mph fastballs at the A’s hitters. Unfortunately, that annoying hobo-hipster-athlete, Josh Reddick, worked a walk, and with two outs, was running on the full-count pitch when A’s 3B Josh Donaldson lofted an outside fastball down the RF line. Rick Ankiel… tried, but came up empty on a do-or-die dive. He probably wouldn’t have been able to keep Reddick from scoring even if he had played it safe, but he scored easily on what wound up as yet another triple.

The Astro hitters went quietly in the 9th against A’s closer Grant Balfour, and the result was their 2nd 4-game losing streak of the young season. One can only hope that when this team does find some consistency, it will closer to “consistently good” than “consistently awful”.

Other thoughts:
-JD Martinez has looked terrible on most of his at-bats that I’ve had the chance to see lately. The Astros are essentially choosing to play him rather than Wallace right now, which is strange to me. Wallace clearly, if he’s ever going to hit, needs ABs against major-league pitching. JD clearly is in need of more time at AAA to figure out his swing.

-I didn’t get to see it, because mlb.tv was having technical issues early on, but Ankiel apparently hit a sharp line drive with the bases loaded and two outs in the 3rd inning, but right at the 1st baseman. Probably would have been the difference in the game had it gone through.

-Chris Carter is only 1-for-8 in the last 3 games, but he did not strike out last night, for probably the 1st time this year, and he’s now hitting .264/.339/.528, which is not bad at all. He seems to be putting together much better at-bats now, even when he’s not hitting bombs.

Got bombed, got frozen
Got finally off to a finally dozing…

Angels 5, Astros 4 (Saturday)

contributed by Mr. Happy

This game was great. For seven innings. Lucas Harrell spread out six hits, including Josh Hamilton’s first home run over his 5.2 frames. The Astros took advantage of Garrett Richards on an off-night, touching him for four earnies in 6.1 innings, including Chris Carter’s fourth long ball of the year. Would four runs be enough? Ambriz was loose with the hits, but didn’t surrender a run over his 1.1 innings.

This takes us up to the eighth inning, up 4-1, with the backend of our bully, that team of Cruz and Veras. Could they hold off the Halos? Cruz surrendered two hits and two runs (one unearned, courtesy of a JD Martinez error) over his inning, cutting the lead to one. Would it be enough for Veras?

Veras strikes out Conger on three pitches, including a wicked couple of snappers. However, for some reason that escapes my understanding, Veras walks Jiminez, the nine, on five pitches. This brings former Astro J.B. Shuck to the dish. Veras goes full to Shuck before inducing a harmless F7. Trout. Trout singles Jiminez to 2B. Guess who comes up next? The bane of Astro existence—the one and only ageless Albert Pujols. Veras throws a 1-0 meatball to dipshit, who doesn’t miss it, lining a double to LF. Unfortunately, Trout is fast. Very fast. He scores all the way from 1B to seal our fate. Veras takes the loss (0-1) and earns his first blown save.

In the GameZone, a poster enraged the BBGs by suggesting that Shithols was done. We all know what happens in those situations. Shitfick. Come see us in the GameZone.

Angels 4, Astros 1

W: Wilson (1-0)
L: Humber (0-3)

She plays castanets, she works without a net
I like her better when she walks away
She said she was mine, she told me twice
I like her better when she walks away

Yeah, I like her better when she walks away
I like her better when she never stays
I like her better when she danced my way
I like her better when she walks away

Sometimes it’s the exhilaration of the tease. Those moments where you’re close, near as a whisper and the electricity jumps from her arm to your hand but you don’t dare to draw the distance. When you were a child, blowing bubbles…did you like to pop them, or follow that lone stray floating on the wind, hoping that it would be the one to escape and your eyes were the last to mark its flight?

Something about the number of chances makes the tease stronger, warps it until it takes on all the depth and meaning of truth. As long as you don’t blow on the smoke you can watch it curl and embrace and pretend that it’s more than you know it is, as real as a dream. Just don’t shine too bright a light this way.

The Angels were supposed to be better than this. That’s a hell of a lineup over there. We can laugh and smirk about how some of those millionaires are past their sell-by date, but when you turn the light on they’re still a really big guy with a bludgeon standing in that alley. You might make it through, but you know you aren’t going to just saunter by.

Sure enough, the Angels brought the stick today. They didn’t use it often but they did show it enough to remind everyone that money, luck and smarts are the way to the bright lights. Humber was great, and he’s been great – much better than we had the right to expect. He scattered seven hits over seven innings, but one of them was an opposite field home run muscled out by Trout on a high fastball. In the meantime, C. J. Wilson was the beneficiary of Houston’s weakness as he walked the tightrope through six, walking four and giving up five hits but only one run.

Despite multiple 3-2 counts (seven?), the Astro offense was so inept with runners in scoring position that they resorted to a squeeze bunt attempt in the sixth inning with runners on second and third, down by one. It was so close you could feel her breath on your neck, but if you turned to meet it she’d melt away.

I do love watching her walk though.

The skies are fire and he’s waiting to die
And his heart’s as empty as a dead man’s eyes
She held his hands, looked him in the eye
She said “Believe, Believe and everything will be fine.”