Astros Lose But Still Having a Great Year

Posted on September 25, 2015 by BudGirl in Featured, Game Recaps

The previous five years were horrid.

WP: Gott (3 – 2)
LP: Harris (5 – 5)
SV: Street (40)

Submitted by Sphinx Drummond

It’s a team game. It’s not about individual accomplishments. On a shitty team that has no shot of making post-season, individual accomplishments are highlighted and that is why Altuve winning the batting title had such an impact last year. On a good team, individual accomplishments take a backseat, all that is secondary, first and foremost on a good team it is all about winning and making a run at the post season.

Sometimes day games conflict with having to earn a living. I was able to pick up bits and pieces of Wednesday’s game. The Astros fell behind early, caught up and took the lead, then surrendered it and in the end, lost the game. A lot like last year, except last year it happened time after time, and this year it hasn’t happened nearly as often.

My expectations going in to this year were modest and have been exceeded tremendously. There are a but nine games left and the Astros are in the race. They might not make the post season but they are in the fight and that is more than any reasonable person could have foreseen. The club has a solid base and will continue to improve as time moves on.

This club has provided some great moments for fans to reminisce over for a long time. Years from now, when we get nostalgic about the past, we will remember the great turn around of 2015 with great fondness. The end of this season is near and the Astros still have a fighting chance. That is so cool. I can temper any disappointment about any possible negative outcome with the fact that this years team is way ahead of schedule.

The Astros are off Thursday and host the Rangers for three games starting Friday.

Travel Teams

Posted on September 19, 2015 by BudGirl in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros 3
A’s 4

I’ve been thinking a lot about genealogy. You probably don’t knows this, but part of my family are recent immigrants. My mother, Styörn, only came to the states in the 60s. She was born in Skvlänlandia, which is a small north European country separating Southern Finland from Russia. Grandfather Tumsk was in the Skvlänlandian resistance, skiing from fir tree to fir tree, taking pot shots at first Russian and the German tanks with his reindeer rifle.

The Skvlänlandians have an odd Y-Chromosome genetic trait: without the Y-chromosome, the women look a bit like Khaleesi, only taller and more athletic. The men, with the Y, are short, as broad as they are tall, and hairy. Oddly, when things get crossed up, the Skvändvandlians think the women beautiful and the men ugly. At 6-feet in Skvländvandlia, I would be a freak. I can remember my grandfather saying that a short, broad woman looked beautifully warm.

The Skvländvandlian diet consists mostly of reindeer and root vegetables, and after the war my grandfather went home to the countryside to grow beets. During the long winter–and most of the Skvländvandlian seasons are winter–my grandfather coached a girls’ travel biathlon team. He would take a group of 8 year-old girls from Norway to Siberia to ski and shoot, ski and shoot. My grandfather always said that if you couldn’t ski and shoot by the time you were 8, you were tostadas against the Russkies.

My mother Styörn was a great biathlon talent, and was 4th among women in the 1960 Winter Olympics. For me, more importantly, she was thrown onto the world sports stage as the first great sports beauty. Tall, blond, fit, with the mildly Asian features of the far north, she was, well, to Southern eyes, spectacular. Pretty plain to a Skvlänvandian You probably remember the Iconic Life magazine cover of the long-haired blonde beauty in the white jumpsuit on skis in the snow, holding the long Skvländvandlian reindeer rifle, facing east towards Russia. That was my mother.

My father was from Houston. His family had a pipe threading services company that had threaded every oil patch pipe in East Texas. By the 60s they were going international. He saw the Life cover. He was Houston oil patch, and he sought out my mother and wooed, and won.

With my mother in Houston, my grandfather came to the States and started beet farming in Pearland. My father sold his services company to Halliburton in the 80s, and then lost it all on a real estate development off of 288, Silver Snowes. In early 2008 my grandfather sold his beet farm for $200,000 an acre for single-family home development. Like a lot of immigrants, baseball had helped him assimilate. He’s a huge Astros fan, but he only speaks Sklvändlish.

I watched the games this week at my grandfather’s assisted living facility. Me, my grandfather (who looks now like a smaller Jabba the Hutt, only very hairy), and my mother ( who looks a bit like Grace Kelly, if Grace Kelly had aged as gracefully as she possibly could have aged).

“har rätt till undervisning. Undervisningen skall vara kostnadsfri, åtminstone på de elementära och grundläggande stadierna. Den elementära undervisningen skall vara obligatorisk. Yrkesundervisning och teknisk undervisning skall vara allmänt tillgänglig. Den högre undervisningen skall stå öppen i lika mån för alla på grundval av deras duglighet.
Undervisningen skall syfta till personlighetens fulla utveckling och . . . “

“Mom, what did he say?”

“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it snows.”

“har rätt till undervisning. Undervisningen skall vara kostnadsfri, åtminstone på de elementära och grundläggande stadierna. Den elementära undervisningen skall vara obligatorisk. Yrkesundervisning och teknisk undervisning skall vara allmänt tillgänglig. Den högre undervisningen skall stå öppen i lika mån för alla på grundval av deras duglighet.
Undervisningen skall syfta till personlighetens fulla utveckling och . . . “

“Mom?”

“ Fucking Neshek.”

“har rätt till undervisning. Undervisningen skall vara kostnadsfri, åtminstone på de elementära och grundläggande stadierna. Den elementära undervisningen skall vara obligatorisk. Yrkesundervisning och teknisk undervisning skall vara allmänt tillgänglig. Den högre undervisningen skall stå öppen i lika mån för alla på grundval av deras duglighet.
Undervisningen skall syfta till personlighetens fulla utveckling och . . . “

Grandpa’s hand was gripping mine hard and tight. I didn’t need a translation, and he muttered it in English: “Winter is coming.”

Surprise Surprise, Astros lose another one on the road

Posted on September 14, 2015 by BudGirl in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros 3
Rangers 5
W: Kela (whoever the hell he is), L: Harris, S: Tolleson

Box

Rangers are leading the season series 9-4. Unbelievable. Seriously, unbelievable. Not only did we have to suffer the Astros loss, but we had to listen to Ashby. He is not intriguing.

This whole Rangers shit just pisses me off. I know the Astros have exceeded my expectations for the season, but losing the division to the Rangers may just put me over the edge. And I’m not far from that edge to begin.

Game Zone

Road Woes Redux

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Waldo in Game Recaps

Submitted by NeilT

Astros 2
Anaheim 3

Of course they lost. They were on the road, and Keuchel was pitching. I was talking with my friend Buck McBraden, whose son, Kole, was in the same little league as Dallas Keuchel.

“We told his parents, if we told them once we told them a dozen times, Dallas is pretty talented, but you want him to succeed on the road you have to get him in travel ball early.”

Kole started travel ball when he was three, on the Tulsa Toddlers (who won the national three-year old living room tournament that year in Iowa City), then went on to play for the Pre’s, the Oklahoma Plains, the Smudge, the Dust Bowl, and a team Buck started, the Tulsa Lubricators, a 10-year old travel team, on which Kole pitched and played second base.

“Kole should have played shortstop,” Buck told me, “but it’s hard for a left-handed shortstop to turn the double play. But his curve was good, and he had a nasty two-seam, and his four-seam was hitting 40.”

“Little League just won’t do it for you. You don’t get the competition because the skills aren’t there. Dallas’s parents didn’t have him in a league by three, so he never got used to traveling. It was a real waste, because that kid had some talent.”

And you saw it last night, if you didn’t fall asleep. Keuchel made it through 6, but his first error of the season cost him. In the second he soared to get a Baltimore chop, but he isn’t yet used to his superpowers. He went too high and bounced the ball off the heel of his glove. What should have been a third out turned into a Dallas Kerfuffle, with two walks, more than enough wild pitches (1, scoring the first Angel run, with another in the first and only 5 for the season), and 3 total runs scored, none earned. None earned.

That was really the ballgame. Fields gave up no hits and no walks in relief, which is a relief, and Neshek followed Fields with one hit, one walk, and no runs. Jered Weaver pitching for the Angels was blowing stuff right by the ‘Stros, with 7 Ks, which must have surprised Weaver. Altuve had a double in the first, and became the youngest Astro to reach 800 hits. He also had a steal after reaching on a fielder’s choice. Gomez homered in the 6th to drive in Correa for the two runs.

Kole is now back in Tulsa, after two seasons of Juco ball at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M. Buck is starting Tulsa’s first two-year old league for his grandson, Lance. “It’s not really organized ball,” Buck told me, “It’s more to get them used to swinging the bat.” The Arlington Dickities won, but of course the Houston Astros will win no more games on the road. Ever.

Astros Take Bats To A Broom Fight

Posted on September 10, 2015 by BudGirl in Featured, Game Recaps

Use long ball to avoid sweep in Oakland.

WP: Collin McHugh (16 – 7)
LP: Aaron Brooks (1 – 3)

submitted by Sphinx Drummond

Most Excellent Gamezone

BOX

The Astros offense took advantage of four homeruns to power their way to an 11-5 victory over the Oakland A’s Wednesday. Collin McHugh lasted 5.1 innings, he has had better outings though he sailed through the first four innings before giving up 4 runs in the fifth and one more in the sixth inning before leaving the game with one out in the sixth. After Chad Qualls allowed one of MxHugh’s runners to score, he and the relief corps combination of Will Harris, Pat Neshek, and Oliver Perez, stopped the bleeding and shut the door on the A’s offense.

After being shut out on Tuesday the Astros offense came back to life pounding the baseball, scoring at least one run in every inning but the first and third. Colby Rasmus, Carlos Gomez, Evan Gattis, and Marwin Gonzalez, all homered. After going hit-less in the first two games of the series, Altuve added two in Wednesdays game, he is currently hitting .311.

Coupled with the Rangers being shut out in Seattle, the Astros now have a 2 game lead in the standings, one less loss, three more wins, but we know that the standings are just something to look at as the Astros still have 22 games left to play and so much can happen between now and the end of the season.

Another Thursday off day allows the Astros to take a leisurely trip down the coast to Anaheim where they will face the Angels in a three game weekend series begining Friday night. Dallas Keuchel (17 – 6) will look for his 18th win, his mound opponent will be Jared Weaver (6 – 10) who seems to have mostly good outings against the Astros. The game starts 9:10 pm CST. Also thanks to HH for the excellent PBP in the Gamezone.

Game Time: 3:38
Attendance: 13,387

I don’t know what happened

Posted on September 8, 2015 by BudGirl in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros 9
A’s 10
W: Doubront, L: Fiers, S: Doolittle

GameZone
MLB recap

I was in San Antonio for the weekend to celebrate my Dad’s 76th birthday (as some of you may know that is quite an accomplishment for him) and from what I could tell, the Astros tried to homer their way to a win but were unable.

Here’s to a better result to tonight’s game! Kazmir v. Gray. Let’s hope the boys start a nice long win streak tonight.

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