SAY YOU WILL

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Dark Star in Featured, News, Series Previews

July 6-8, 2012

Milwaukee Brewers (38-44) @ Houston Astros (32-51)

Minute Maid Park
501 Crawford Street
Houston, TX 77002

HOUSTON (SnS) – Staggering into the All Star break after a disastrous road trip – or at least it would have been disastrous were the team going anywhere in the first place, which it is not … the biggest news for the hometown Houston Astros as they limp home to lick their many wounds running sores at the midway point of the 2012 campaign is the trading away of Carlos Lee, the erstwhile OF fixture-now 1B/immobile object, to Miami for some alleged prospects. Unlike the previous deals involving Roy Oswalt, Lance Berkman or Michael Bourn, etc., it is hard to imagine this one creating much if any uproar amongst the rapidly dwindling Astros fan base; save for the drunks fond of hopping around the outfield concourses at MMPUS on stick horses while wearing over-sized sombreros.

In other words, except for the serious fans.

***************

SCHEDULE
Friday 7:05 p.m. CDT (FSH)

Saturday 3:05 p.m. CDT (FSH)

Sunday 1:05 p.m. CDT (FSH)

***************

IF SIX WAS NINE. The other day at one point I was presented with a column of 15 or so 3- and 4-digit numbers which needed to be added up, then averaged. I reflexively began to reach for a calculator, and then some existential something-or-other made me stop myself. Was it Jesus? Maybe it was. The ghost of Archimedes? Who knows? All I know is I was suddenly overcome with the urge to add these numbers up, and then derive their average, manually. And, not having pencil and paper handy (not having had pencil and paper handy in years), I resolved to complete the task entirely in my head.

Men have thought the prospect strange
demonic scaring as they woke
from a ravishing crystalline dream
of abstract Eternities
to touch the edge of Change
where all Numbers twist and break. . .

I have this sort of idiot savant skill at basic math. I can add — or subtract, or multiply, or divide — extremely long columns of numbers, carrying over and everything, all in my head, and at tremendous speed, with accuracy. It is not a talent I developed, I just had it from the beginning, as far back as I can remember. From whence it came I can only guess.

I never was much for showing off my odd little skill, because it did not seem very remarkable to me. But my elementary school teachers began to wonder how I was turning in my tests half an hour ahead of everyone else, and getting all the questions right. Naturally, they suspected I was cheating some way.

This all came to a head in third grade, when one day my teacher gave me a big fat red “F” on a math test on which I’d answered all but 2 of 30 problems correctly, in record time. She openly accused me of cheating, and refused to even consider changing the grade. I finally told my parents about it. They went mildly ballistic, and met with the school principal and everything (I was dubious about all this, I just wanted the grade I’d honestly earned.) It ended up I had to stand in the principal’s office, in front of him and my parents, while my teacher rattled off a series of about 40 numbers at me. When she was done I gave her the sum total of the numbers, which I’d been adding in my head as she went. The total was correct. My principal was very impressed, but I think my teacher just started hating me even more.

Anyway, all the kids eventually heard about this throw down/showdown (not from me), and for awhile I was kind of a hero to the third graders at that school. Seems just about everyone hated that teacher. Anyway, not to bad thing to be, everything considered. The only reason those kids did not start calling me ‘The Human Calculator’ or something similar is because back then calculators weren’t very prevalent at all, and the ones there were approximated the size and weight of the front quarter panel on a 1966 Dodge Charger. Probably cost as much, too.

Luckily, none of my classmates thought to call me The Human Abacus, or The Human Slide Rule. The Human Comptometer kind of has a nice ring to it, but no one thought of that one, either.

I once impressed a very attractive girl with my addition skills, so much so she started dating me.

My freshman year of high school, there was this pretty girl in my class, obviously so far out of my reach I never even dreamt of taking her out. I didn’t mind standing around looking at her, though. She worked at Baskin-Robbins after school, and I happened to be there one evening when she was closing the store. She couldn’t make her cash register balance, even after numerous attempts. So I helped her quickly recount the money and receipts, and then everything balanced out as it should have. She was impressed and seemed very turned on by this, so I asked her out. Even then, I knew an opportunity when I saw one; especially one that walked right up and slapped me in the face.

Alas, a romance based on someone’s math skills is generally not destined to last very long, and this one didn’t, either. But I still remember it all with some fondness. It was the first time I realized that some of the stuff I was being forced to learn in high school really did have practical applications.

My vaunted skill at mathematics came to a screeching halt the next year. That was when I first encountered “higher math”, in this case trigonometry. Try though I might, my brain was simply not wired to grasp the more abstract and esoteric concepts of trig and calculus and matrices and whatever the hell else lay beyond that. My facility for mathematics simply went to a certain level, and then stopped cold. And that was it.

Suddenly, my skill at adding numbers was obsolete. It was, I realized, about as relevant — and useful — as blacksmithing, or alchemy.

What did it all mean? Would my youthful confidence, flowering but still delicate, be utterly destroyed? How would I cope? Well, for one thing, I was going to have to figure out a new and better way to attract girls.
_______________

Nowadays, we are rarely asked to do much math at all. Calculators are everywhere, from one’s laptop to one’s phone to one’s watch, to spreadsheets that do everything for you. No one has to add up anything, anymore.

We are better for it, no doubt. But still, it is fun to go back and try out the old skills again, like I did yesterday. I added up those numbers, and averaged them, all in about 15 seconds, in my head. No pencil and paper, no trees had to die. It was gratifying to find my old skill intact, to know I still “had it.” I started thinking, I wish I knew where that pretty girl from the ice cream parlor lives now. I’d go over to her house and show her, after all these years, that I still knew how to turn her on. Yes.

Okay, maybe that was not such a great idea, but … Stop punching the keys on your phone or your watch or calculator. Add up some numbers in your head. Do some long division, on paper. Figure up a batting average, or an on base percentage. Set yourself free, momentarily at least, from the drowsy ease and convenience of the silicone chip.

By all means, reconnect with the numbers. Follow them. Go with them, all the way out to where the air is thin and there is no light, out to the place where the numbers twist and break.

Some people will tell you, that is the place where God lives.

***************

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Friday
Yovani Gallardo RHP (6-6, 3.87) vs. J. A. Haap (6-8, 4.81) – Be sure and at least lurk tonight, in the Game Zone, as GZ moderator Mr. Happy is likely to be blowing several gaskets at once. Lefty hurler Haap has this sort of effect on him. +1

Saturday
Zack Greinke RHP (9-2, 3.08) vs. Wandy Rodriguez (6-6, 3.54) – It looks like Greinke is a sure bet to be traded away to someone before the deadline. That was the thinking on Wandy, as well; but now, maybe not.

Sunday
Marco Estrada RHP (0-3, 4.31) vs. Jordan Lyles (2-5, 5.40) – Lotta runs.

***************

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. I saw a guy in a black Jaguar in the drive-thru line at the Taco Bell yesterday. I don’t know why it surprised me. It was the Deadhead-sticker-on-a-Cadillac moment, I think. Why should a rich guy be any less enamored of the ________ (fill in the blank) served out the window of Taco Bell than the rest of us proles? Also, that guy didn’t get rich enough to buy that Jag by throwing his money away; and as everyone knows, if nothing else you get more bang for your buck at Taco Bell than at any other fast food outlet. You can feed a family of four for under ten bucks with ________ (fill in the blank) from Taco Bell, provided no one gags on it. . . which they shouldn’t, unless they get one of those damn “Fiesta” burritos, the ones they put rice in. You don’t put rice in a fucking burrito, goddamn it! It should be against the law to do so, if it isn’t already.
_______________

For a long time now, I don’t eat at Taco Bell if I can help it. I did more than enough of that when I was young. Even back then, the only time I ever really wanted anything from there was late at night when I was headed home after a long night of partying. I don’t know why that was. But I used to find myself there often enough, sitting in the drive-thru line with a lot of other no doubt similarly bewildered drunks, not even able to remember making the decision to go there in the first place. It was like my car drove itself. I would end up ordering way more than I could ever eat, and often by the time I got home I didn’t want any of it. So I’d throw the bag into the ‘fridge and go to bed. And then a week or so later I would throw it away. Taco Bell stockholders got rich off of all the bean burritos I bought back in those days, and never ate.
_______________

The first Taco Bell built here is, I think, a Vietnamese seafood place now. That location in its original incarnation was pretty popular back in high school. It had this faux volcano thing out front, with a smudge pot stuck into the top of it, lit up. We called it the Eternal Flame, and considered it a fitting symbol of the whole Taco Bell experience. Still, most kids went there because it was the only place open after midnight where one could go if one was suffering from an onset of the munchies.

I got thrown out of there one night, by some little burrito-making dude, for laughing too much. That’s right. I was in there with a friend of mine, and for some reason everything he said to me was hilarious, and I went into fits of uncontrollable laughter. Weird.

Another night I walked in there at some ungodly hour and caught the little burrito dude making “refried” beans. He had a steam table tray on the counter, into which he had dumped a couple of institutional-sized cans of pinto beans. He had a Black & Decker ½ inch power drill with a paint-stirrer attachment in it. And he was going to town. This is a true story. He was puréeing the beans with a power drill. I found that both repulsive and, at the time, extremely amusing; and I ended up laughing my way out of there again.

Since then, except for all the times I was legally intoxicated, I have denied myself the pleasure of eating at Taco Bell. My loss, I have no doubt.

***************

INJURIES
Milwaukee

Houston

***************

BEACH CULTURE. As it happens, I found myself walking alone along Crystal Beach this past Tuesday night, around 10:30 or so.

The girlfriend and I and a few friends of both of ours had come down to the beach for a couple of days, to relax a little, and celebrate Independence Day. The rest of the crew had settled into the cabin we rented, and had begun listening to music and drinking cocktails. I intended to do very much the same. But one thing I always have to do when I first arrive at the beach – as soon as possible – is reconnect with the beach itself … re-introduce myself to the wind, and sand, and waves, and ocean. I told the others to go ahead and start mixing drinks (which, actually, they had already started doing), and I’d be with them shortly – I just needed some fresh air.

My girlfriend, Lea, is still fairly new, but she is going to be a good one, I think. She pretty much likes to be anywhere I am, bless her. But she already knows there are certain times it is better to let me alone for a little while, and that this was one of them. More than probably most people, I require – in fact, thrive on – my alone time.

So there I was, walking barefoot along the edge of the water, in a pair of canvas shorts and a Bob Marley Legend T-shirt, flip-flops in hand. I was walking alone, but the beach was by no means empty. A lot of people had showed up for the Fourth, and there were people drinking and listening to music and shooting fireworks and even a few bonfires.

Most people are laid back and friendly at the beach, probably more than in their everyday lives. Hell, I am pretty sure that is what draws many back down there, again and again. Anyway, a reasonable looking guy walking down the beach alone has zero chance of getting very far before being invited by one stranger or group of strangers or another to have a cold one, to stop and listen to some music, even to sit by the bonfire a bit, and join in the fun. I had several invitations on my walk that night, and I accepted every one. My intention was to go with the flow. Very much like body surfing … I intended to let the wave catch me and pick me up, to let the unique energy of the Bolivar Peninsula guide me and carry me along that night on my walk. I am sure most beaches have their energy, but Bolivar is special … partly because I have spent a large chunk of my childhood and adult life there, sure. But the place is special, anyway. Took a direct fucking hit from Hurricane Ike, and looked like a bombed out beach on some no-name WWII South Pacific atoll. Left for deader than fucking dead. Lost forever. Gone.

And within two years, one would hardly have known there was any hurricane at all. The houses and businesses came back, the people came back, and the unique energy of the place came back, too. If you do not believe in miracles, neither did I. Until I witnessed this one, first hand.

As I walked along, after having stopped to talk and drink with a couple of different groups partying down on the beach, it occurred to me I had been doing this very thing I was doing now – just drifting, waiting for the beach culture to pick me up and carry me along – for nearly 40 years. Amazing. So many good times, and an endless supply of stories and anecdotes and just slips of memories.

After an hour or so of doing my thing down on the beach, I headed back up to the cabin. By the time I arrived, it appeared several rounds of drinks had already been gone through. I poured myself some Early Times over ice, and dumped in a couple of ounces of water to smooth it out. Then I went and sat by Lea on a sofa, and began to ease my way into the ongoing revelry.

I don’t want to feel this way another day, it’s killing me
I don’t want to be the one you try to mess around
I could never see the reason in the way you looked at me
Baby, you’re the one I want, so come on, ’cause I need you now

Say you will
Say you’ll stay with me tonight, girl
You won’t be sorry …

I was 22 or 23 years old, sitting out on the open part of the deck/veranda that wrapped around three sides of the beach cabin, with Diane, my girlfriend. We had been out there awhile. It was night time, maybe close to midnight, maybe after. Who knows? We’d been partying that day for hours and hours, since noon, at least. In fact, there was a party still going on at a beach house down the way – some friends of ours – and we had been there earlier. But an hour or so prior she and I had decided to come back to our cabin.

The deck on that cabin was excellent for stretching out on at night, and looking at the sky. We had dragged a couple of chaise-lounge lawn chairs out there, and had been laying back, watching intently for shooting stars. We’d only seen a couple. In late summer, August and September, one could see hundreds in just a couple of hours. But it was early July, and the action was slow. I had turned on the stereo, and a song Diane really liked came on (“Say You Will”, by Blanket of Secrecy). She reached over and put her arms around my neck. Just then, something really bright flashed by in the sky. We both turned in time to see something large and bright and moving at a very high rate of speed streak low across the shore and go several miles out over the ocean, before crashing into the water with a splash, leaving a brief afterglow.

“What was that?!” my girl asked.

“I don’t know, Jesus! But hey, can you hand me another beer?”

Diane reached over and unhesitatingly plunged her hand into the ice and melted ice water in the cooler on the other side of her chair, and pulled out a cold Miller Lite, and handed it across to me. I loved that girl passionately, for a lot of reasons. Just one of them was the way she handed me a cold beer.

Her song had ended, but she pushed the volume even higher when the next song came on, some dweeb Englishman singing about being blinded by science. But it had a good beat, I guess. It got my girl all worked up, that’s for sure. Which, in turn, got me worked up.

We quickly forgot about the celestial anomaly we saw that night. A UFO crashing spectacularly into the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of Galveston/Crystal Beach was one thing. My baby, Diane, getting herself all worked up over some Thomas Dolby song was something else entirely. We quickly retired to the privacy of the beach cabin to enjoy each other in the way people have been enjoying each other since all the way back in the olden days, back to when Adam and Eve used to get it on, in that sub-Saharan savannah back in Africa, where we all come from.

If the sun refused to shine
I don’t mind
I don’t mind,

If the mountains fell in the sea,
Let it be
It ain’t me …

Lea looked at me and laughed. She has the most beautiful smile, and I spend a lot of my time trying, in various ways, to elicit it. Just because I get off on it so much. Luckily, it is pretty easy for me to do – for some reason, she thinks I am hilarious. I reached out to the coffee table in front of us and picked up my drink, and took a sizable sip of sweet Kentucky bourbon mixed with a little Ozarka water, and some ice. It felt so good going down, it gave me a bit of a shiver. Just then Lea kissed me in the ear; and when I smiled, our friends laughed. It’s nothing, really. Just a random moment, in a random cabin, on a random road, on a random night. Down at Crystal Beach.

Crystal Beach – the magical place where both kids and grownups come to play, and laugh, and feel good, and just let the beach culture wash them over, and – at least for a little while – carry them away. One day, when I grow up, if I ever do … I want to move down there.

And then stay.

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

***************

Astros win series, 2-1.

Whatever else you are doing, I implore you – get down to the beach, any beach, as quickly as you can. You will not regret it.

Happy Fourth of July!

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Noe in Austin in Featured, News, News You Can Use

Romeo Had Juliette

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Cubs 3, Astros 0
W:Wood (3-3) L:Rodriguez (6-6)

Sometimes if you revel in a dream, a fantasy…sometimes it becomes reality.

In the spring before my last year in college, I got engaged. In retrospect it was stupid, but at the time everything in my life was accelerated. I couldn’t wait to graduate, get a real job, get married, start the rest of my life. Everything I did was on a compressed timetable, all of it was moving at the fastest possible pace because I needed to get out and get on with it RIGHT NOW.

I was so proud, young and in love
Head in the clouds, a gift from above
I held your hand all through the storms
Nowhere to rest, nowhere to run

You’ve got to hold me, hold me, hold me
Baby, try to understand
You’ve got to cool me, cool me, soothe me like nobody can
Like nobody can
Teardrops must fall
Teardrops must fall
Teardrops must fall

The Astros are struggling in a month-long Tar Pit. As hopeful and defiant as they have been in stretches this season, they are now at the mercy of their own weaknesses and the long season is in danger of becoming their enemy. The bats have been silent for a month now. Young teams spend their growth learning how to not lose a different way each night. This team is making strides in that category, because they seem to be settling in to losing by virtue of having no offense at all.

They’ve forgotten how to take pitches. The walks they got earlier are gone, replaced by swings outside the strike zone and their conjoined twin, taking pitches for strikes. This isn’t a run of bad luck, it’s a run of bad hitting and poor discipline.

The piece-of-shit Cubs, in free fall and in last place, took the broom to Houston today and spanked them like it was Fantasia. Bewitched by their own impotence, this team is a threat to be no-hit every night.

***

My fiancee went back to Houston for the summer, and the plan was to get married when she came back. Inseparable as you’d expect two teenagers who were perfectly matched to be, we’d decided that spending those couple of months mostly apart was a good thing, a difficult but ultimately strengthening move. I took the separation as a benediction for two months of debauchery and in the middle of all of that was Sheila.

Sheila was a nice girl, and she didn’t do what bad girls did. We’d caught each other’s eye working at a restaurant and with Dawn out of town we were free to get to know each other a little better.

I told her at the beginning that I was engaged, and that nothing was going to change that. Whatever happened between us was something we did, knowing that it had an end in a little less than two months and that end was a wall, final and immutable. She agreed and in a couple of weeks we’d gone from hanging out with each other to seriously making out every night. Still, this pretty Irish girl had boundaries too and her resistance to my persistence was admirable, if not entirely honorable. After all, I was engaged.

By week three she was spending the night half the week and I was showing her everything I’d learned in my too-fast apprenticeship to my life. Devouring the entire canon of John Holmes, I knew pacing, some interesting positional varieties, and the best Dirk Diggler-esque lines designed to heighten the mental aspects. On the off nights I’d go to the clubs in search of prey, pressing hard against all the boundaries I had left before August rolled in.

The whirlwind of the summer spun faster and faster, the tighter circle becoming a hidden metaphor for my life. Acceleration wasn’t enough, it had to build exponentially while I juggled as many different items in the thin wild mercury as could possibly be suspended in the blink of an eye. Drugs, work, women, music were the raging streams, their currents powerful yet flowing into each other all hours of the days and nights, becoming one elemental force. There was no longer a separation, but now a single roaring blast from the alchemy of that summer and the compression of years into weeks.

Sheila was spending most of her time at my place by mid-July. Not quite moved in, she’d go to her place every day but more often than not we’d end up back at my place for the night. I enjoyed this, she was that rare girl who not only was easy to get along with, she was also very pretty, and completely comfortable with this temporary arrangement that we were mining so deeply. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my last free summer.

We walk the street, and I hold your hand
As we stroll along, I can’t understand
How a love can live in this desolate land

Broken windows, and broken hearts
You are cheated before you start
Was there ever a chance?
No, there was never a chance

Wandy pitched pretty well, as have the starters for much of this run of no runs, this spell of no hits. If the only way they can tie is by pitching a shutout, well, that’s a taller order than most staffs can fill, let alone this cast of the Weird and the Damned. Wandy only gave up five hits in seven innings to this brutally awful Cub team but when you have no margin for error you have no chance to win and that’s what happened out there today.

***

One night towards the end of July, we were on the couch fooling around as usual. I had her shirt off, fingernails lightly caressing the backs of her arms while our tongues danced in between bites of full lips. I remember her smell, fresh and clean with a growing hint of spice. Her pale, freckled skin was a direct contrast to my fiancee’s tan, and her softness was unusual to me, a special gift. She broke the kiss and said something about a day in August, some place she wanted me to go with her to. I smiled and told her that I was going to get married in August, and we both knew that.

We kissed again, but she was different. I knew it was going to come to this, despite the fair warning. She stiffened, and I could tell that she was caught in that dim fog between what she knew and what she wanted. Her relaxation was evaporating and then I felt the tears on my lips.

The perfume burned his eyes
holding tightly to her thighs
And something flickered for a minute
and then it vanished and was gone

Carlos Lee took his time deciding whether he should go to Los Angeles until the Dodgers pulled the offer and made up his mind for him. Word is that while on the plane to Pittsburgh he was coming closer to deciding, thinking maybe that he should accept it. This is the typical reaction time we’d come to see in left field, but he seemed to be so much sharper when he was playing first base. Fan reaction among TZ dwellers is mixed but no one appears to be happy that the punchless big man is going to hang around a little longer. Maybe he’ll end up in LA, maybe he’ll get dealt somewhere that his no-trade doesn’t disallow, or maybe he’ll be showered with boos when he plays out this last season as an Astro. I’ll remember him fondly as a terrific professional hitter, one who never had the real adulation of the fans but who delivered regularly for years. The selfish side of me wishes he’d taken the trade so that the Astros could start working on the Brett Wallace Experience. Time will tell. Time heals all.

Remember that neither Romeo nor Juliet survived the play.

Astros in The Land of Bullshit Miller Lite Banners

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

by Austro

June 30, 2012

FTC 3, Astros 2

WP: Matt “Please Trade Me” Garza
LP: JA “Watch Me Work” Happ

I recently started a new job, and one of the benefits is that it keeps me off of 183 and MoPac. Every morning I wind my way around over to the Burnet and Anderson area, and I go past a couple of bus stops near the office. At one bus stop in particular, there is always one or two blind people waiting for the bus. And this week I noticed something interesting: on three or four occasions there was a blind person walking down the sidewalk, tapping in front with his white cane, trailed by a sighted person. This person wasn’t walking alongside offering her arm, but rather trailing behind silently. My guess is that she is an instructor of sorts, helping the blind person get the hang of navigating the area.

I bring this up because I’m thinking of inquiring about borrowing two or three of the blind people to use as courtesy runners for the Astros. There is absolutely no chance that they could do a worse job than the Astros themselves, and they might well be an improvement. Today’s game brought more baserunning slapdickery, the “highlight” being JD Martinez — who apparently hasn’t been told that there’s a very good reason he’s not competing at the Olympic Trials up in Eugene — deciding to go first to third on a single to left field. Yes, Soriano is a horrific defender, and it makes sense to exploit that when possible, but in this case even Soriano was going to win. That realization evidently crept into JD’s consciousness about halfway to third base, so he compounded the error by stopping and trying to go back to second base. You can probably guess how that worked out.

The 5th inning turned out to be the decisive inning. Happ led with a single, and Schreefer, as usual, failed to move him up. But then Lowrie bunted back to the mound, and Garza did a spectacular impression of a flying walrus, crashing and burning as he tried to field the bunt. It looked like the Astros might be about to get a gift from the Cubs, but then Lee grounded into a double play in spite of the fact that the Cubs took about 30 seconds around second base. Hopefully the Dodgers weren’t watching that.

Valbuena led off the bottom of the 5th with a walk (one of four issued by Happ) and was sacrificed to second by Garza (see how that’s done, Schreefer?). Then Castro hacked a miserable opposite field single to left, scoring Valbuena. Up came the 30-year-old wunderkind Rizzo, and he deposited the ball in the right field stands, scoring two and giving the Cubs the lead and, ultimately, the win.

The Astros had one more chance in the 6th when CJ walked with one out. Castro followed with a single to left center, but — wait for it — CJ decided to try for third and was called out. He probably was safe, but it was really close and he overslid the bag, and Welke rung him up. That was pretty much the last threat.

Happ pitched six adequate innings, giving up five hits and striking out six but walking four. He could have been better, but he certainly could have been worse, too. The bullpen did fine, but the offense just couldn’t string anything together.

We get one more chance to kick these assholes in the junk on Sunday at 1pm.

*********** Play-by-play notes, for those with a strong stomach *************

1st and 2nd innings:

Sorry, I was busy trying to put out a fire at work. Happ apparently struck out the first four batters.

T3:

JD gets on. #8 (Moore) doubles. Happ Ks for first out. Shreefer knocks a ball through the hole between short and 3rd to plate JD. Lowrie hits to first, Rizzo throws home and Moore is out at the plate. Lee grounds out to 3rd to end the inning.

B3:

Garza Ks. DeJesus walks. Castro goes to a full count, then grounds into a double play.

T4:

Bogusevic leads off, takes the count full, fouls off several pitches, and walks. Johnson singles up the middle. Castro grounds the ball down the 3B line, but for some reason the Cub third baseman is over there. He bobbles the ball but still makes the double play, leaving a runner on 2nd. Then JD singles up the middle, scoring CJ, who waddles around third but scores anyway. Moore singles out into left center, but JD manages to get himself thrown out with some spectacularly bad baserunning.

B4:

Rizzo flies out to CF on the first pitch. JD with a “Rizzo the Rat” reset; I wonder how many viewers get that? Sorifuckingano singles up the middle, but he may have pulled something on that epic run to first base. LaHair grounds out 4-1 (over a diving Lee). Soto walks. Lowrie makes a great diving stop and flip to Moore at second for the force.

T5:

Happ singles to left. Schreefer out somehow. Lowrie bunts back to the mound but Garza crashes and burns and everybody is safe. Lee hits into the most frustrating double play ever; he could be the slowest human ever.

B5:

Leadoff walk for Valbuena. Good sacrifice by Garza. DeJesus makes an out somehow. Castro hacks a ball into right field for an RBI single that he totally didn’t deserve. Fucking Rizzo hits a two-run homer, giving the useless Cubs the lead. Soriano Ks; sit down, meat.

T6:

Bogusevic takes the count full, then flies out to Castro in short LF. Soriano sucks. CJ goes full then walks. Garza out, Maine in. Castro singles to left center, and Johnson decides to try for third and dies. He was probably safe, but he overslid the bag, so he got called out. Maine out, Corpas in. JD strikes out, we suck.

B6:

LaHair grounds out 3-1. Soto doubles off the ivy in LF. Barney flies out to Bogey in short RCF. Valbuena grounds out to Lowrie at short.

T7:

Moore Ks. Downs (pinch-hitting for Happ) flies out to RF. Schreefer flies out to the bunny-hopping left fielder.

B7:

Abad in to pitch. Johnson pinch-hits for whatever rag-arm the Cubs brought in last inning and doubles into the RF corner. Rather than get thrown out at 3rd, he decides to stop at 2nd. Astros may want to take note of that. DeJesus chops to 1st and advances Johnson to 3rd. Castro gets the IBB, first and third with one out. Rizzo Ks. Soriano strikes out; there is a god.

T8:

Lowrie flies out to RF. Lee strikes out looking weak. Bogusevic flies out to deep RF.

B8:

Campana grounds out 4-3, although it was close; that fucker is fast. Carpenter in to pitch. Soto grounds out 4-3. Barney singles to LCF, Schreefer can’t be bothered to pick up the ball, Martinez grabs it and throws to second, but Barney is safe. Winds up being scored an error on Schreefer. The next guy flies out to Schreefer in CF.

T9:

Marmol on to pitch. CJ strikes out on three straight pitches, which has to be a record for Marmol. Castro walks after hitting several balls hard into foul territory; sadly, he failed to kill any CubFan. Martinez flies out to RF. Moore with the Astros’ last chance, which turns out to be no chance at all.

more rain delay please

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

by NeilT

My dad was a pork belly magnate, and I grew up in Lincoln Park. On Saturdays we’d leave our humble home, just me, Mom, Dad, Sis and the driver, and head to Wrigley, where we had tickets behind one of the steel supports just back of third base. Dad would buy us each an Old Style and we’d sit in the stands shivering as the wind whipped in off the lake. I couldn’t see, because as the youngest I had to sit behind the column, but Sis told me that it was Cubs baseball and watching it didn’t matter.

I still wear my baby blue Cubs sweatshirt with a hoodie and a baby bear, the one that looks just like Sis, to every game. I love me some Cubbies. But I love this Astros club too—they remind me so much of my great Cubs teams, now and forever. They share that mix of random performance coupled with spunky inconsistency. Take me out to the ballgame! Buy me an Old Style!

I couldn’t see the game today, I was behind a column, but I did look at the box score. The Cubbies carried a one-hit shut-out into the 8th, and the Astros gave up 4 runs on 3 home runs, 9 hits. Norris, who returned to the mound for the first time since June something or other was pulled after 6 innings and 80 pitches. And of course 4 ER. On 3 home runs. My favorite reliever, Abad, got through an entire inning without any ER, which means he has an ERA for the season of 3.14. Who’d have thought? There were Astroducks on the pond in the 9th, but Myers wasn’t the pitcher so nothing happened. 6 LOB.

Castro had a throwing error, so all’s right with the world. We’ll get ’em next time.

Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Padres 7, Astros 3

WP: Vincent (1-0, 3.00)
LP: Myers (0-3, 3.71)

by Mr. Un-Happy

For six innings the Astros were no hit. What Dallas Keuchel didn’t demonstrate in command tonight was outweighed by the calm, cool and collected poise out there In traffic, because he had lots of it. Fortunately for him, the Padres were only able to scratch out one run on a Chase Headley solo no doubter in the third inning. Then, in the seventh inning, with one out, Carlos Lee broke up the nono with a sharp single to CF, followed up by monster two run jack by cleanup hitter du jour Brian Bogusevic, which chased Cashner, who had abused the Astros primarily with cheese aided quite a bit by Derryl Cousin’s wide and high strike zone.

The Astros added an insurance run in the eighth with a little bit of slapdickery from the Padres: a wild pitch scoring a what we thought at the time was an insurance run. We got decent bully action tonight out of Rhiner Cruz (who I think was pitching for his spot in the organization tonight), Lyon and Wright. So that takes us to the top of the ninth inning and our closer, Brett Myers, who has been just a bit wobbly lately.

After I woke up from shock after watching Clank II boot his second ball of the night on a potentially game ending twin killing, I noticed that the Padres had tossed a six run hand grenade, four of which scored courtesy of the first big league home run from Alexi Amarista. Lucky for Myers, who departed with two outs in the frame in favor of Xavier Cedeno, only one run was earned courtesy of the Clank II choke. Cedeno coaxed the final out in the ninth , ironically handled by Clank II. Do we have someone-anyone-who could come in as a 3B defensive replacement, because I think that Clank II needs one? Every night. Oh. I almost forgot. Marwin Gonzalez is on the DL but should be out on a rehab assignment as of tonight.

On a night that was shaping up as magical, with Fuckhouse as the Patti Smith fan of the game and a majestic clutch home run by Bogusevic in what was a ten pitch at bat, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. The Padres threw a hand grenade in the ninth inning. Ouch. This one hurts. As Austro in the Game Zone observed, that plane ride to the Windy City ought to be just a barrel of laughs. Clank II and Myers should be forced to sit together on the plane.

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