Contributed by Reuben

W: Storen (1-0)
L: Storey (0-1)
(wow, that totally looks like a typo, huh? According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last time two pitchers with the same exact first five letters of their name, but a different sixth letter, both got their first decisions of the year in the same game was on Opening Day in 1947, when Tigers P Johnny Smithe beat Senators P Grundfos Smithy, 2-1 in 15 innings… Yes, that is all made-up bullshit).

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Good Things About This Game (in chronological order)
-Jordan Schafer went on the “DL” with an “injury”, and Brandon Barnes was called up
-Jordan Lyles’ 7+ great innings
-Francisco’s HR
-Wesley Wright’s 2 outs
-FeRod’s surprisingly good work
-W. Lopez, the usual
-Pearce, getting on base
-Corporan, working a 3-2 walk
-Wallace, hitting what should have been a walk-off double off the wall in left-center

Bad Things About This Game (in chronological order)
-Danny Espinosa. I almost never like guys whose stubble goes all the way up to their eyeballs, and Espinosa is nowhere near an exception. He had all 3 RBIs, posed like a smug cock-face when he hit the HR, and knocked a dinky-ass groundball up the middle for the game-winner. Plus, he had like 24 assists at SS tonight.
-the Nationals relievers. They’re all funny-lookin, and/or do something really annoying that pisses me off.
-Roger Bernhadihnha. No, I’m not going to look up how to spell his name. Fuck that guy and his fucking amazing catch running into the wall to end the game. I’ll bet it was really fucking exciting for all the Nationals fans that were there.
-the Nationals still haven’t gone back to being called the Expos, or dropped that horrible Walgreens logo. It’s sad how one of my formerly-favorite non-Astros teams has turned into a bland-clad bunch of goons led by ass-faces like Jayesen Worth and Bryce Harper. Damn I miss Tim Raines, Tim Wallach, Marquis Grissom and Delino DeShields (Sr.).

Read the GameZone thread for more colorful analysis, including bold (tragically misguided) predictions of an Astros victory.

Braves 6, Astros 1

W:Venters (4-3)
L:Norris (5-9)

In one of my lines of work I get to see the lead stories and runthrough of the weekend news from some Atlanta station, I don’t know which one it is. Every night it’s like watching the apocalypse – fire destroying houses and buildings, children getting run over, massive wrecks, random murders, daylight armed robberies, gang shootings – it’s hell on Earth and it’s the lead on every single broadcast I see. It’s like Atlanta never stopped burning.

Maybe it’s that gunshy atmosphere. Maybe it’s the FourLoko and meth. Maybe it’s just the turmoil of two different cultures colliding in some tectonic kaleidoscopic earthquake that gives those cracker idiots the belief that there is no stupid there, it’s all on The Outside. That might go some distance in explaining why their scoreboard displayed “You can’t spell Disastrous without Astro” during the game Sunday. Classless and ignorant is the face they show the world, and apologies couldn’t even begin to address it.

Perhaps you’d like to join me in sending a message to the Braves and to MLB that we don’t appreciate the lack of professionalism on display at the game today. The email address for the Braves is [email protected]. I’m also going to send a happy missive to our Gentle Protectors at MLB, specifically the Commissioner. You can join in too at:

The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball
Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner
Address: 245 Park Avenue, 31st Floor
City: New York, State: NY Zip Code: 10167

Slack-jawed yokels.

I never did like the Braves. I liked Eddie Mathews enough, Warren Spahn seemed great. I didn’t doubt Hank Aaron’s talent, but I never had any fan connection to the franchise. That lack of feeling went out the window when the Sniveling Women changed the way umpires called games, tarnishing the game, and it absolutely went to hell when they became the arrogant also-rans who were in direct contention with the Astros. Hordes of thousands of redneck fans who descended upon the Astrodome to see them play, their only trips to the ballpark despite living in Houston. This always filled me revulsion. And don’t get me started on the Alkie stroke .

We didn’t expect Houston to score much today, even against Kris Medlen, a reliever trying to convert to part-time starter because of injuries on the Atlanta staff. They didn’t disappoint, although there were a couple of occasions where less-familiar observers might think runs were in the offing. With runners in scoring position in the sixth, Downs was called on to strike out and then Martinez to ground out weakly. In the eighth two more were stranded when Brett Wallace did his part by fanning.

Norris pitched better than we had a right to expect, holding the Braves to one run through five before flipping a wild pitch with two out and the bases loaded to give up the lead run. A subsequent two-run single to the wet noodle of Paul Janish’s war club and the game was lost.

The latest excursion into the Land of the Losses has come to an end, and the Home Nine will be back in Houston to host the Nats. At least losing to them will give the Braves a jab in the ribs, one the Astros couldn’t deliver on the field this weekend.

Astros 3, Braves 2

by Mr. Happy

Okay. A road win, which have been scarcer than hen’s teeth this season – which, as you know, are pretty fucking rare – must be savored. Like a piece of the choicest filet mignon that melts in your mouth, yet you want it to last forever.

For five innings, Lucas Harrell battled the Bravos, clad in quasi-throwback unis. Harrell didn’t have his best stuff and was up in the strike zone much more often than usual. He simply ran out of gas in the sixth as you said it, hen’s teeth? Who’s Bob? The Good Guys had been nursing a two run lead courtesy of a Justin Maxwell, who admires his work a bit too much for my liking, long two run home run in the fourth inning off of new Braves hurler, Paul Maholm. Yep. Astrokilla Paul Maholm, who had been toiling for the FTC, proved he was mortal indeed as we hung an L on his back tonight.

In the seventh inning, one man Braves wrecking crew Justin Maxwell hit an even longer solo shot to give the Astros the 3-2 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish. Harrell, who threw 112 pitches in six innings, was lifted in favor of FeRod, who tossed a scoreless frame. For the second night in a row, WW came on and delivered 1.1 innings, including some really fine work to the left-handed hitting Brian McCann and Freddie Freeman, striking out both, as well as retiring the pesky Larry Wayne Jones, who had reached in all three plate appearances against Harrell.

Given that the next two hitters were righties, Millsie went to the bully again in the ninth frame and brought in newly minted closer, Wilton Lopez. Lopez promptly hits Dan Uggla on a 1-2 offering. This brought up a pinch hitter for the all-field/no hit Paul Janish, Juan Francisco. Francisco immediately grounds into a game-ending twin killing to preserve the win for Lucas Harrell.

Harrell’s record is now 9-7, which is a fucking miracle on a 36-72 club, and he cut his ERA to 3.98—not a shabby rookie season for someone who was on the waiver wire just last season. 9-7 on a 36-72 team is not ‘72 Phillies Carlton-esque, mind you, but we’ll take what we can get right now. Just think, without Harrell, the Astros record would be 27-65—wrap your arms around that one and own it. Now at least someone other than Xavier Cedeno has a save on the club.

For the second straight night, the bullpen shined brightly over its three innings of work. Millsie stayed with Harrell two hitters too long in my opinion, but he masterfully maneuvered the relievers with his normal matchup tendencies to preserve the victory. Maxwell, another waiver claim, finished with a perfect 4-4 night with two long balls and a stolen sack.

Who was not hot? Gentle Ben Francisco punched out thrice around what would be a key single, scoring on Maxwell’s – I fucking refuse Brownie’s invitation to call him “J-Max” – first home run. Twice Francisco looked dumbfounded by strike three by the crafty Maholm, who uncharacteristically K’d eight in his seven innings of work. The Astros held the Braves’ hitters to four hits this time.

The road record now stands at 11-45. Onward and upward from here? Doubtful. Let’s just remember this one fondly and move on with our lives. The GameZone featured lively banter tonight for a Saturday night game and even discussed the Beatles bootleg work, working in a “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” reset. You never know what we’ll discuss there. You just have to come check it out!

Astros 1
Braves 4

By NeilT

Much has been made of the Tomahawk Chop, and its alleged insensitive racial stereotyping, but recent scholarly studies have shown that the Atlanta Tomahawk Chop has no racial component, and in fact is long ingrained in Atlanta history and culture. We believe it safe to say that the chop predated the arrival of the Braves in Atlanta, and carries none of the derogatory connotations some critics wish to assign it.

The first reference to the chop appears in a journal kept by a Confederate soldier, Virgil Cain, during the 1864 Siege of Atlanta by Union forces led by William Tecumseh Sherman. Cain was among the troops retreating under Joseph Johnston, until Johnston was replaced by the more aggressive John Bell Hood. As Confederate casualties rose, the troops would take increasingly desperate measures to maintain morale. Cain writes:

“Some of the boys took to climbing up on the barricades during business hours and made like they was choppin cotton, up and down like they was swingin a hoe. They’d holler over at the yankees ‘we got slaves to chop our cotton, but we’ll be doin this choppin our own selves.’ Course I thought it was pretty dumb, cause they almost always got shot down off the bankment.”

So the chop predates the arrival of the Braves in Atlanta by more than 100 years, with no derogatory reference to Native Americans. Again, following the War Between the States, the chop appears as a means of self-identification within the Ku klux Klan, though its precise meaning is unclear. Because Native Americans were largely a remnant population in Georgia by the rise of the Klan, there is no reason to believe that the chop related to Native Americans. Scholars have speculated on the meaning of the motion (perhaps pulling a bell rope as a warning?), but the meaning remains unexplained.

As a major rail crossroads, and as center for many Southern military installations, during the two World Wars the chop was used by servicemen and adopted by young Atlantan males to harass local women. Sometimes the motion would be more of a push pull, indicating sexual congress, but often it was up and down indicating what was known throughout the Atlanta area as the Alkie stroke, or the chop off. It is recorded that if the women harassed were Asian, the motion might be accompanied by hollers of “chop chop.” But there is no indication that other ethnic or racial groups, particularly Native Americans, were singled out for harassment, or that the motion was derived from Native American culture.

It is believed that this last use, this so-called Alkie stroke, is the usage adopted by Atlantans as the current Tomahawk Chop, or Tomahawk Chop Off. There is no indication that the Alkie chop is identified with Native American stereotypes, but instead is tied to male sexual preening. So little is known about this so-called Alkie stroke that it is certain that the academic literature concerning the chop and it’s surprising results will continue to enlarge, and we will watch with great interest as more precise explanations arise.

I watched some of tonight’s game, enough to make me want to add a new feature to this recap: the Chop Off Player of the Game. It’s the Astros player who, at some moment in the game, makes such a creatively boneheaded (get it, get it, boneheaded?) play that you know the game is lost. Tonight’s Chop Off Player of the Game is Marwin Gonzalez.  Outstanding effort, Marwin. 

Other than that not much to be said. Gallaraga walked 7 but only struck out 4. We left 7 on base. I bet Bourn is pretty happy in an Atlanta uniform. Kimbrel is pretty amazing.

They’ll show up again tomorrow.

Astros Lose to Brewers 13 to 4; Swept Out of Milwaukee

WP: Fiers (5-4, 1.88)
LP: Lyles (2-8, 5.95)

by Sphinx Drummond

This the worst team most have ever seen. Historically bad. Only a few teams in the history of MLB can come close to being as bad. The record, as dismal as it is, is not a true indicator of how miserably bad the 2012 edition of the Houston Astros are. Any win from now to the end of the season will be a matter of just coincidence, or luck, or perhaps the other team had a bad night and Harrell was allowed to complete a game. Currently, at 35 wins and 71 losses, 29 games out of first with 56 games remaining (25 games behind in the wild card). This team belies any notion of competitiveness. Losing is not amusing nor is seeing how many games the Astros can lose. This may be a necessary purge this team is going through, but it’s hard to find any kind of pleasure in it. One only hopes it’s of a short duration.

Also, don’t listen to DoRay anymore. They need to be purged. DoRay are as unprepared and ill-equipped to perform their jobs successfully as the current Astros roster is theirs.