Jack Cassel, Reggie Abercrombie, David Newhan, Jose Castillo, Mark Loretta. When a player goes down, other players step up. Yesterday it was Wigginton, today we heard that Backe would miss his next start because of an elbow twinge during his bullpen, and Wandy Rodriguez didn’t make it past the first because of a reoccurrence of the oblique injury. No matter, no one cares, they just went out and played.
MLB Game Wrap | Footer Story | Wigginton’s Injury | GameZone | Comical
Roy Oswalt brought his A-game to Coors Field Saturday night, throwing his fifth career shutout and his first since 2005. Except for a leadoff single surrendered to Brad Hawpe in the fifth, Oswalt held the Rockies hitless, the first one-hitter of his career.
Hunter Pence supplied all the offense Oswalt required, drilling a two-out, two-run homer off Colorado starter Jeff Francis in the sixth. Francis otherwise pitched well, scattering seven hits and striking out five Astros in 6-1/3 innings.
Unfortunately, the victory was not without cost, as the Astros lost Ty Wigginton when he strained his groin trying to run out a grounder on the first plate appearance of the game. Wigginton, who has been perhaps Houston’s most consistent hitter this year and has excelled filling in for the injured Carlos Lee, is expected to miss at least a week. Wigginton is batting .294 with 22 home runs, a .363 OBP and a .552 slugging percentage this season. Spark plugs, anyone?
Astros 3, Rockies 5
W: Ubaldo Jimenez, L: Brian Moehler
Astros Recap
Yahoo Recap
Box Score
Do not believe I have witnessed a game go that fast in Colorado. This game took 2 hours and 37 minutes. Read More
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Astros 4
Baby Bears 0
W: Wolf (9-11) | L: Dempster (15-6)
Footer Recap
AP Recap / Box via Yahoo!
Game Zone
Wolf and Private Pyle broke out the whooping sticks on the Scrubs last night, going apeshit in the second shutout of the series sweep. Wolf dominated in his first complete game since 2004, punching out 8 against 2 walks, and sprinkling in just 6 hits allowed. Of his 128 pitches, 93 were of the strike variety.
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Astros 9, Cubs 7 in 11 innings
W: Wright (4-3) | L: Wood (4-3) | S: Valverde (39)
The road warrior Astros put another L on the frontrunning Cubs at their own crappy yard, finally achieving victory in 11 innings after a huge two-run bomb from Geoff Blum. Read More
Astros at Cubs, 9/1/08
Astros 3, Cubs 0
W: Oswalt (13-9) L: Marquis (9-8) S: Valverde (38)
I love the fact that Roy swears he’s not doing anything differently. Sure, Roy… the drop of 2 runs in your ERA after the ASB is just a matter of balls falling in gloves.
Anyways, Roy was the Roy of old once again, dealing to the tune of 4 hits and no walks over 8 1/3 innings. Of course, 2 of those hits were in the ninth, leading to a save opportunity that was much more interesting that we thought it would be.
The offensive side of the ledger featured some great baserunning by the Puma, who tagged up and took second on a Blum sac fly that plated Tejada, which put him in place to steal third and trot home on Hunter’s single up the middle. Berkman also later went first to third on a wild pitch when Soto threw wildly trying to nail Miggy at the plate.
On the flip side, I’d like to issue a perssonal memo to Jose Castillo:
Breaking your bat on a 3-0 fastball from Samardzija – a guy who had just managed to walk Hunter Pence, for crying out loud – is not a good way to win a job for next year.
