contributed by NeilT

Heigh ho, heigh ho
It’s off to work we go
Heigh ho, heigh ho . . .

“Heigh Ho”

Snow White

Frank Churchill (music) and Larry Morey (lyrics)

The Astros came into Anaheim, that damned Disney town, on their first win streak of the season. Everyone in Anaheim was still in black for Annette. The ageless Evil Queen Grimhilde, the one who’d mirror mirrored us from StL, and his 24 dwarves are supposed to be the best team in baseball, right?

I’m gonna be a mighty king, so enemies beware!
I’m gonna be the mane event
Like no king was before
I’m brushing up on looking down
I’m working on my roar
Oh, I just can’t wait to be king!

“I Just Can’t wait to be King”

The Lion King

Sir Elton John

The Astros are not the best team in baseball. They’re all about potential that’s further than happy ever after, but sooner than never never. But this team, this team right here, is supposed to be terrible. Historically terrible. The very Armageddon of baseball as we know it. That’s why nights like tonight, a series opening shut-out of the better team following a series win from Our Natural Rivals, the Scurvies, are so completely satisfying.

Someday my prince will come
Someday we’ll meet again
And away to his castle we’ll go
To be happy forever I know

“Someday My Prince Will Come”

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Larry Morey (lyrics) & Frank Churchill (music)

The big story tonight was Bud Norris, 7 innings of shut-out ball, 3 hits, 2 bb, 5 SO. It started ugly, with a HBP for the first batter, but that was followed by a timely and completely satisfying Cruella de Trout GIDP. Grimhilde walked, but Gaston k’d. Norris had now made it through the toughest 2-4 in baseball.

It was not really an easy inning–many pitches were thrown—but it seemed easy because of the top of the first. Altuve led off with a single, Maxwell doubled scoring Altuve (and was thrown out at third because of boneheaded baserunning. If his baserunning were a dwarf it would be Dopey.) Castro and Carter singled, Pena walked to load the bases, Martinez had the only K of the inning, and Ankiel drove in two runs with a single to right field.

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Zip-A-Dee-A
My oh my what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine headed my way
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah Zip-A-Dee-A

Mister blue bird’s on my shoulder
It’s the truth
It’s actual
Everything is satisfactual

“Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah”

Song of the South

Music by Allie Wrubel, Lyrics by Ray Gilbert

Norris’s 2d took 6 pitches. Six. Pitches. Brandon Harris got the Angels first hit in the third after Jimenez grounded out, but was followed by two Ks. Meanwhile the offense kept grinding. Maxwell homered in the second. Ankiel doubled in Pena in the third. By the end of the third, the Disney’s Hanson Brother had thrown 87,000 pitches.

It was now 10:15 in real, not Disney, time, and I fell asleep.

We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through
To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do
It ain’t no trick to get rich quick
If you dig dig dig with a shovel or a pick
In a mine! In a mine! In a mine! In a mine!

“Heigh Ho”

Snow White

Frank Churchill (music) and Larry Morey (lyrics)

But that’s really the story, isn’t it? The Hanson finished the 5th, so the Disneys got more than they should have from him. Marwin Gonzalez was caught stealing in the 6th—of course he was, I had him in my fantasy lineup. Martinez and Dominguez walked in the 8th, which was better than Martinez and Dominguez striking out in the 8th, and hopefully a nice sign of a sea change. Probably not. The Astros only struck out 7 times in the game, though. The Disneys struck out 6.

Altuve led off innings three times on base. What else could you ask from your lead off? He’s hitting .364, as if I need to tell you. Maxwell had a double and a homer. There were 10 hits total, with only Martinez, Dominguez, and Gonzalez hitless, and Dominguez had two walks.

Defense was sparkling, with strong play by Dominguez, Gonzalez, and Maxwell. And the pitching just got it done. Armbriz pitched a scoreless 8th, but gave up a single to Grimhilde to start the 9th. Wright got Gaston on a force out to second, and Cruz got the final two outs on the night’s second double play.

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you.

“When You Wish Upon a Star”

Pinocchio

Ned Washington and Leigh Harline

Astros win 8-3, take 2 of 3 in series with Marines

W: B. Peacock (1-1)
L: B. Beavan (0-1)

HR: HOU – R. Ankiel (2), C. Carter (3), M. Gonzalez (2) SEA – K. Shoppach (1), F. Gutierrez (3)

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

There is no proper way to watch the Astros in Austin and the radio feed is absent more than present. It makes it hard to be an Astro fan, you have to make quite an effort to follow this team in it’s own time zone, add two time zones and it takes twice as much effort (or maybe three times as much). One thing that eases the burden is winning. The Astros brought their lumber along for the second night in a row and pounded out 16 hits in route to an 8 – 3 victory over the Seattle sponge gums.

Chris Carter has finally started swinging his hitting stick with authority, hitting his second home in as many nights, adding two more hits and total of 2 RBIs and 2 runs scored. Carlos Pena has started hitting too, getting three hits on the night. Marwin Gonzales hit his second homer of the year, hell even Rick Ankiel got into the action with his second home run of the season–also just his second hit of the year. Brett Wallace didn’t play.

Brad Peacock held tough for 5 innings, giving up 3 runs in picking up his first win as an Astro. Kuechel, Cruz, and Veras were lockdown in relief, surrendering nothing. This team has looked good in the three games it has won. Real good. Right now the team is still looking pretty bad overall and is on pace to end up 54 and 108, but who knows, it’s a long season and the team is more likely to improve than regress as the season progresses. When you’re in the basement, the elevator only goes up.

Astros 16, Mariners 9

W: Clemens (1-0)
L: Maurer (0-2)

Contributed by Reuben

Since Tuesday’s Astros game didn’t start until 10:10pm, my time, and my wife is fighting a cold, I decided to just watch the game in bed. I often don’t go to sleep until 12 or later anyway, but evidently I was more tired than I thought, because I don’t even really remember the 1st inning, much less the rest of the game.… I’m guessing the Astros didn’t get a hit until the 6th or 7th, and probably kept it close for a while – maybe they were only down 2-0 until Seattle scored 5 in the 6th, effectively ending the game. But that’s nothing new, and therefore not even worth looking up; I’m sure everyone’s sick of reading about the last loss. So instead I’ll tell you about this crazy dream I had.

Last night I had the strangest dream
I’ve ever had before.
I dreamed the Astros all agreed
to score and score and score.

In my dream – I think it was Wednesday morning, 3 AM when I was having this dream – the Astros didn’t just strike out again and again, and struggle to even get the ball out of the infield, and they didn’t make a lot of stupid mistakes on defense or on the bases. They didn’t wait until the 2nd half of the game to put any runs on the board… nope, they just came right out of the gate, swinging the big bats. Altuve led off with a hit, ok, fine, but then it really started getting weird: Maxwell got a hit, Castro (who, oddly, was batting third in my dream) got a hit, then Carlos Pena not only didn’t strike out, he actually almost hit a grand slam, settling for a 2-run double, and then it all kind of muddles together, the way dreams do – they just kept on scoring. JD Martinez hit a HR, Carter had two HR and four hits! Even Marwin hit a HR! Like I said: a really bizarre dream.

Funnily enough, every Brett Wallace AB in my dream was like a recurring nightmare; he just kept striking out over and over. But the rest of the team, it was like the balls were metal, and they had magnets in the barrels of their bats. JD Martinez had a crazy RBI single on a slider that broke way down and away; his bat somehow just went right to where the ball was going and hit a line drive into left field. Also, I must’ve been thinking too much about the tandem starters thing Luhnow’s doing with the minor league pitchers, because in my dream the Astros had two SP each throw 4 innings.

And the people in the visitor’s clubhouse
Were dancing round and round
And bats and gloves and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground

Read commentary on the actual game in the GameZone thread. I’m sure they made it entertaining despite having to endure another pitiful loss full of strikeouts and goose eggs.

(Alternatively titled: “You know your team is having a rough time when ever Mariners fans feel a need to mock you…”)

April 8, 2013

Seattle 3, Houston 0 (Box Score; Gamezone)

W: J. Saunders (1-1)

L: P. Humber (0-1)

S: T. Wilhelmsen (3)

There is something about Opening Day Baseball.  This holds true even if it is not really Opening Day (in fact a week after actual Opening Day, which is not really Opening Day anymore as W. Huber has decreed from upon high that there will be an official Opening Day game before Opening Day, but alas I digress), rather the home opener, and the opposing team’s home opener to boot.  Still, for the first time since the eternity of the most recent Void, baseball had found its way back to the Pacific Northwest.  Not only was baseball back in the Northwest, but the Astros were heading back to the Northwest for the first time since June 7-9, 2004 when the Astros took two of three from the Mariners.  I’d had the opportunity to attend game two of the series – it is was phenomenal.  Though the Astros were held to three hits on the night, a MoBerg sac-fly in the top of the seventh inning sent Bags home for the Astros only run of the night, which proved enough as Clemens-Lidge-Dotel managed to hold the Mariners scoreless. It was, to say, memorable for me as it was the first time I’d seen the Astros in person since I’d left the Houston area in late 1993/early 1994.

For me, however, the game last night had a very different ‘feel’ to it.  The Astros came into Safeco Filed not as a ‘curiosity’ via inter-league game, rather as a soon-to-be regular visitor to Safeco Field as the newest (and least regarded) member of the American League West.   And with that came a sense of unease, at times slowly eating away at the anticipation and excitement of being a part of Opening Day*esque festivities.   The Astros play the previous five games had only served to magnify this unease.  Still, Opening Day*esque baseball was back, and I was still looking forward to being a part of it.

And I was still looking forward to it even after two of my close friends who I’d invited to join me and my colleagues on  the trip to Safeco held us up from getting to the park for a collective hour-plus as they attempted to get their shit straight… Yes, I was annoyed (read: pissed off).  Fortunately, for the sake of my colleagues who actually wanted to see most of the Opening Day*esque baseball pre-game festivities, I drove like the proverbial bat out of hell’ and made up 30 minutes on the trip.  [Unfortunately, Washington loves their photo-radar machines and I am unconvinced that fortune may have shown brightly enough upon me yesterday to have avoided all (or even many) of the photo-radar sped-traps set up on I-5 North to Seattle].  That said, we arrived at Safeco safely, and in time to see many (but not all) of the Opening Day*esque festivities.  And in arriving at the park, whatever difficulties or apprehensions involved in so doing were instantly gone.  It was, after all, live baseball.  On a beautiful night. In a great venue.  And once again all seemed right with the world.

Admittedly, I was hoping (against hope) I would get the opportunity to witness an Astros win against ‘hated divisional foe’ the Seattle Mariners, but that was not to be (Astros lost 3-0).  I did, however, get to witness an encouraging outing from Astros’ starter Philip Humber (6.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, BB, 2 SO, 1.11 WHIP, 3.09 ERA).  And, fortunately, I did not have to endure another 10-plus strikeout performance (8 on the night) by the Astros (and remained aware of the ‘K-Count’ throughout the game as my colleagues made every effort to ensure that I could not remain oblivious to Astros’ whiffs (either during the present game or for the Astros season-to-date)), so there is that.  Most importantly, however, I got to see baseball – Astros baseball (even if it was the craptastic version that we’ve seen since game two of the 2013 season).  And despite the loss, in being at a baseball game and enjoying all that goes along with being at a game, all was right with the world once again.