Astros 8, Reds 3
W: Wandy Rodriguez, L: Aaron Harang

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For Wandy Rodriguez in Cincinnati, the 11th straight win for the Astros in Cincinnatti and the 3rd straight win for the Astros.

Wandy Rodriguez is doing his best to show that there is more to him than being a good man at home. He’s proving he can pitch on the road. He pitched 7 innings, giving up 1 one run on 5 hits and 2 walks. Outstanding work. Geoff Geary and Wesley Wright each pitched an inning of relief giving up a run.

Aaron Harang for the Reds did not fair so well. He went 6 innings giving up 5 earned runs (6 total in the 6 innings) on 6 hits. Nick Masset pitched two scoreless innings, Mike Lincoln toss 1 inning of 2 run baseball and Jared Burton closed out the 9th scoreless.

The bats came out for the Astros tonight. Kazuo Matsui led the game off with a single, then Michael Bourn reached on an error and Matsui scored on the throwing error to give the Astros the lead. Both Matsui and Bourn stole second.

Willy Taveras led off the bottom of the first with a walk. Jeffy Hairston Jr. followed with a single, moving Taveras to third. Joey Votto grounded into a double play, but that allowed Taveras to score. Brandon Phillips followed with a double, but was left standed at third (which he stole) when Jay Bruce grounded out to Lance Berkman at first.

Ivan Rodriguez homered to deep center in the second to give the Astros the lead again.

In the top of the fifth the Astros decide to bring the bats out again. Geoff Blum led off with a single to right, the Ivan Rodriguez double to deep left which Blum was enabled Blum to score because of Darnell McDonald’s error. Pudge moved to third with Wandy’s sacrifice. Top of the line up had Matsui hitting a single which scored Pudge. Matsui stole his second second base of the night, Bourn walked and Lance Berkman did what he’s been doing a lot of this season, he made an out. Carlos Lee double to center which was more than enough for Matsui and Bourn to score. Miguel Tejada struck out swinging to end the top of the 5th.

Top of the 8th brings the next bout of excitement. Tejada doubled to deep center, Hunter Pence moved him over by grounding out to the pitcher. Blum struck out looking, which makes one think the Astros were going to strand Tejada at third but Pudge walked allowing Darrin Erstad to pinch hit. Erstad hit a single scoring Tejada. Matsui follows up with a single, but Bourn leaves them all hanging by striking out. One insurance run is all the boys get.

Laynce Nix homered off of Geoff Geary to bring the Reds one run closer in the bottom of the 8th. Brandon Phillips homered in the bottom of the 9th, but that was all the Reds could do on the night.

Bench Tidbits:

Ricky Stone at the game tonight. Hope he is doing well.

On the DL goes Jose Valverde.

Check out the GameZone for game time reactions.

Limey’s Series Preview is worth a read to know more about game 3 in the series.

Astros at Reds, 4/27/09
Astros 4, Reds 1
W: Sampson (2-0) L: Cordero (0-1)
HR: Berkman (5)

Roy Oswalt. Lance Berkman. The mainstays of the team. If you want to know how the Astros are doing, you generally look to these guys. And the Astros have pretty much been a .333 team thus far.

So it was timely that the Astros traveled to Cincy, a place where Roy and Lance close their eyes and visualize the Reds as the Gimp from Pulp Fiction.

(ed. note: I was all set to do an xtranormal movie here featuring Roy and Lance as Jules and Vincent, asking a trembling Jay Bruce if Cecil Cooper looked like a bitch. Alas, they are still down for maintenance. Damn you, xtranormal, for hooking us and then taking away our fix.)

Roy Oswalt: 23-1 lifetime vs. the Reds. Roy was cruising most of the night, but I’m sure our astute readers will not be surprised that the one run he allowed came immediately after the Astros had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the 6th on a Berkman solo shot. That was Berkman’s 20th HR in GA Ballpark, a place he wants to make sweet, sweet love to.

Otherwise, it was the typical story of wasted opportunities by the Astros’ offense; for example, a 1-out double by the New Michael Bourn and a Puma walk set the table for Lee, but a GIDP quickly erased that. Tejada led off the next inning with a single to set things up, but was erased trying to stretch to a double. And so on, and so forth.

Come the 9th, Dusty played things by the book and brought in his closer. POW! – a Carlos Lee single. BAM! – Tejada rips a single past 3b. BOOM! – Pence rips a double the other way, plating both. (Something he is apparently not supposed to do. Fundamental hitting is boring, let’s get ribbies!) And in a seemingly insignificant, but actually important, insurance run, Blum brought Pence in from third after he had advanced on the bobble by the Reds’ “new and improved OF defense”. This made the score 4-1 and allowed Coop to do the sensible thing for once, and leave Sampson in the game to close things out.

The Good Guys look to continue living on the air in Cincinnati tonight as Wandy takes on Harang.

Sexay!

It’s frightening and ugly, but it’ll work.  An ugly win is a win all the same, just as Ms. Lewis is (according to Science) a woman.  Russ Ortiz (who has captained the team to a 3-0 record in games he’s started) had trouble finding the strike zone, the offense left nine runners on base, and Jose Valverde’s Ghost walked a batter to start the ninth, but when the smoke cleared, the Good Guys were up 3-2 on the Brew Crew, closing out a messy homestand 4-6.

Fortunately, the Brewers were as bad at scoring runners as the Astros have been, stranding twelve runners in scoring position.  Were it not for Prince Fielder, that number would’ve been 13, but when Mike Cameron doubled in the 2nd, Fielder the Lesser decided to take advantage of Carlos Lee’s, um, whatever it is that makes him take five minutes to field a ball in the left field corner.  Fielder rounded third so wide, it looked like they’d brought the Rodeo chuckwagon races from Reliant to MMPUS.  He scored, putting the Brewers up 1-0.

The Astros made the Brewers pay for walking the fearsome bat of Ortiz in the 3rd, stringing together singles from Bourn and Lee along with the first of two Brewer errors to plate two runs.  The Brewers responded in the 4th with another double by Cameron, who was eventually driven in by Jason Freaking Kendall, who may finally be blossoming into the player Peter Gammons told me he’d be 15 years ago.

Pudge took Manny Parra deep to left-center in the bottom of the 4th, giving up the only insurance run that the team needed. Pudge capped a strong homestand, leaving H-town with a batting average .040 points higher than he came in with, and signs that the game hasn’t passed him by after all.  He also caught Weeks stealing in the 2nd, and repeated the favor in the 8th, gunning down Kendall.

Ortiz managed to scare us pretty well in the 5th, walking consecutive batters with two out before forcing Cameron to fly out.  Coop had seen enough, sending out Double Dub, Sampson, Brocail, and Hawk in succession to keep the Brewers on ice.   CUE THE DRAMATIC MUSIC.

Will Jose Valverde get in a time machine, retrieve himself from 2008, slap some dumb-ass glasses on his replacement’s face as the worst disguise ever, and send 2008 Ponche out to close the game?

Or…

Will Jose Valverde use a walker to get the to mound, all the while insisting that his back is fine, and proceed to give up the only five-run home run in history and blow the lead?

Fortuntately, it was the former.  And there was much rejoicing.   Astros 3, Brewers 2.  Let’s go to Cincinnati and kick some Ohio Valley ass!

The Astros lose an emotional game

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Brewers 5, Astros 2
W: Yovani Gallardo, L: Felipe Paulino

Astros Recap
Yahoo Recap
Box Score

This game lasted all of 2 hours and 14 minutes to give the Astros a two game losing streak. Let’s hope it ends at two.

Felipe Paulino started out for the Astros on the mound he went 6 innings giving up 10 hits for 4 runs, all in the same inning. Jeff Fulchino finished the game going 3 innings giving up one run, a home run by Rickie Weeks.

Yovani Gallardo pitched a complete game giving up 2 runs on 5 hits. It only took him 106 pitches to do in the Astros.

Not a lot of good things done offensively by the Astros. Carlos Lee hit a 2-run homerun in the 4th inning. Michael Bourne had a good night going 2-3 with a sacrifice. His last at-bat was a called strike out. He didn’t look as bad as Lance Berkman who needs to stop whining about strike calls.

Humberto Quintero and Mike Cameron had a little bump at the plate in the top of the 4th. Q and Cameron were both definitely shaken up after the initial collision, but both walked off the field, admist mixed emotions by Astros fans.

Bench Tidbits:

The question of who the emergency catcher is came up after Q left the game. Geoff Blum, Jeff Keppinger, or maybe Jason Smith. Anyone know for sure?

Did Berkman really attempt a bunt in the 9th?

Why did Cooper do the double switch with Lee coming out and Fulchino in his spot in the 7th inning?

There was no fireworks after the game tonight due to rain, thanks to a roof though there was a game.

Check out the Game Zone for in game discussions.

Check out strosrays Series Preview for a great read.

Special shoutout to gleach for the tickets, they were much appreciated.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and may the win streak begin tomorrow.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Dodgers 2
Astros NIL

W: Billingsley (4-0) | L: Wandy (1-2) | S: Broxton (5)
HR: NIL

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Wandy pitched another gem. 6 innings, 1 run. The Astros line up was controlled by Billingsley for 7+ innings and wasn’t able to muster a run as the lone Dodgers score in the 1st held up and the Good Guys dropped the series finale 2-0.

Berkman’s struggles at the plate are maddening. 3 times up with men on, 2 Ks and a GIDP. Miggy was tested tonight in the field and had a rough go of it. A grounder off of his glove diving to his right in the 7th turned into the Dodgers insurance run. But his double in the 1st was as far as any Astros got against Billingsley who snuffed all threats with an efficient mix of pitches that induced either a K or ground ball outs.

Torre pulled Billingsley at the 1st hint of trouble. With 1 out in the 8th, Bourn reached on an infield single and Broxton was brought in to close it out. Pence lined to short and Kaz grounded to 1st to end the 8th.

Bottom 9 was wacky. Miggy singled followed by 2 quick Ks of Berkman and Lee. Then Blum was (was not) hit in the foot by a pitch, bringing the winning run to the dish in Erstad. First pitch to him bounced 3 feet in front of the plate, off C Martin and over towards the Astros dugout, moving the tying runners into scoring position. Erstad swung at the next 3 pitches, a nasty curve and 2 filthy sliders, connecting on the second and sending it bouncing lazily to Loney at 1st who ended it unassisted.

Bud’s Bunch roll into town for the weekend on a 2-gamer. Gallardo vs. Paulino tomorrow, first pitch 7:05.