Hit Parade of singles lead to victory over Jeter’s team

WP: Feldman (7-9)
LP: Huff (3-1)
SV: Veras (1)

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

For the first three innings the Astros could do nothing against the Yankees’ Michael Pineda. All the while, Scott Feldman let a lot of Yanks on the bases but he kept them from scoring. The Astros finally got a man on base when Robbie Grossman led off the fourth inning with a single. He was moved over to second by a Jose Altuve sacrifice. The next batter, Chris Carter, went down on strikes and then Dexter Fowler hit a double to score Mr Grossman from second and give the Astros a one to nothing lead.

The Yankees bounced back quickly via starting shortstop Stephen Drew’s first Yankee homer, and tied the game at one all after four. Is it just me or is he much rangier at shortstop than that old guy the Yankees usually start there? The Yankees took the lead in the fifth inning when Ichiro Suzuki scored on Jacoby Ellsbury’s bunt single to the pitcher Mr Feldman, making the score 2 to 1 in favor of the Yanks.

Things stayed that what until the seventh inning. Jason Castro led off with a walk, and David Huff came in to replace Mr Pineda. Mr Huff got Jon Singleton to strike out and then somebody put a quarter in the juke box at Yankee Stadium and the Astros released hit single after hit single. Marwin (Gonzalez), Matt (Dominguez), Jake (Marisnick), Robbie (Grossman), and Jose (Altuve), the Astros’ new boy band doo-wop group banged out five chart topping hit singles in a row, scoring four number ones to raise the score to 5 to 2 in favor of the Good Guys.

The Yankees threatened in the bottom of the seventh but Kevin Chapman, who came in to relieve Mr. Feldman, was able to get a key strike out of Mr. Ellsbury. And in the ninth inning, with Jose Veras in to close the game, the Yanks got two on and had the tying run at the plate with two out when Mr Veras was able to get Mr Ellsbury to fly out to deep right field to end the game and secure a Grammy for the Astros.

Thursday the Astros send Dallas Keuchel to the mound and attempt to sweep the Yankees in New York. The Yanks will try to stop that from happening by sending Brandon McCarthy to the hill. Have your listening device ready to go early, the game starts at 12:10 PM CST.

Weather: 77 degrees, clear.
Wind: 12 mph, R to L.
T: 3:29.
Att: 42,102.

Houston 8, Boston 1

Submitted by Reuben

Field the ball. Throw the ball. Step on the base. Wait. Oh crap. Wrong order.

A trying rookie year for projected-Hall-of-Famer Xander Bogaerts had another hiccup Sunday afternoon, as his slightly-out-of-sequence double play attempt ended up opening the door for a huge inning by the Astros.

Actually, there were 3 goats in that inning for the Red Sox: new LF Yoenis Cespedes, new Starting Pitcher Joe Kelly, and Bogaerts. After Fowler led off with a line-drive single to center, Kelly walked Singleton – one of 6 walks he issued in his 4 innings. Corporan singled to load the bases. Then came a completely inane effort by Cespedes to catch Krauss’s high fly ball that ultimately landed, untouched, on the warning track in front of the Green monster for a “single”. After a Dominguez sac fly, things were looking promising for the Astros, with a 2-0 lead, two men on, and a pitcher on the ropes with still only one out.

That promise momentarily turned to disappointment as Marwin hit an easy DP grounder towards Bogaerts, who took it to the bag himself and easily threw out Marwin at 1st. However, Geoff Blum knew right away that the SS had gotten rid of the ball before stepping on the 2nd-base bag, and more importantly, Bo Porter knew it too. After some on-field confusion among the umpires and Sox manager John Farrell about whether or not a fielder actually has to touch a base to execute a force-out, the play was reviewed and overturned, allowing the inning to continue and Robbie Grossman to bat.

Grossman had an excellent at-bat, fouling off 3 full-count pitches (rather than watching the borderline ones and hoping they’re called balls, as he is wont to do) before finally drawing a walk on the 9th pitch of the AB. That brought up Altuve, who promptly rocked a 1-0 pitch on an ascending line right into the Monster seats for a rather stunning Grand Slam and 6-0 lead. Unofficially, the ball traveled a distance of about 74 Altuves.

The rest of the game was, while not exactly routine – thanks to McHugh’s struggles with his control – at least fairly free of tension. The only additional scoring on either side came from solo homers by Fowler in the 3rd and Singleton in the 9th, and Sipp, Folty, and Qualls tossed uneventful scoreless innings to wrap it up. Jose Altuve had 4 hits and is now batting .339 with a .374 OBP and .447 SLG. It’s a testament to the immense struggles by the middle of the Astros’ order this year that Altuve has only scored 67 Runs (14th in the league) despite being 1st in the league in Hits and Steals, 7th in OBP, and 2nd in Doubles.

***

Futility Watch: The Astros remain one of the 28-best teams in baseball. Their win today means that, even if they lose the final 37 games of the season, they will have improved from last year.

Astros 5
Red Sox 3

contributed by NeilT

With all the excitement over last night’s first-ever win at Fenway, see, i.e., The Game Zone, there’s really no need for a recap, and that’s for the best because instead of dutifully not watching the game on tv I went to the movies. We went to Sundance Cinema downtown because they have good hoppy craft beer (I had not one but two Buffalo Bayou 1836s), and because there are lots of people there on Friday night who are not 13. Plus you get plush reserved seats with handy cupholders.

I was getting psyched up for next Friday’s game against the Cleveland Subcontinentals, so we went to The 100-Foot Journey, which stars Helen Mirren who is a bitch at the start of the movie but a nice lady at the end of the movie. It also has a pretty French girl whose name in real life is—I kid you not—Charlotte Le Bon, and a family from Cleveland named the Kadans. They go to France to open a Cleveland food restaurant. Here’s the review from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and here’s the review from the Boston Globe.

Anyway it turns out that one of the boys in the family, Hassan, is the most brilliant chef ever, having been trained by his mother in their Cleveland restaurant, and he learns how to be a great French chef by reading books and falling in love with Ms. Le Bon. Her name in the movie—I kid you not—is Marguerite.

When we came out of the movie, the Astros had just tied the game 2-2 in the 7th on a Robbie Baseball homer (8) to right off Buchholz. The Red Sox had scored 2 off Keuchel in the 4th with an Ortiz single and Cespedes homer. The Astros scored off Buchholz (5.79 ERA) in the 5th with singles by Marisnick, Gonzalez, and Grossman. I was sitting on a couch out in the hall of the theater looking at my phone and waiting for Kris. It’s another nice thing about the theater, they have comfortable leather couches out in the hall. Those couches are unbeatable places to people watch while you wait. I was looking at the game and smiling at passers-by, thinking how nice they all were, when I realized the guy alone on the couch across from me, overweight, mid-life, bearded, was talking away but not on a phone and hopefully not to me.

Kris wanted to go to Kata Robata and get sea urchin (that’s a recurring theme in the movie), but I didn’t want to spend the money and I don’t like sea urchin, so I suggested Cloud 10 Creamery for a banana split, which was an outstanding redirect if I say so myself. By the time we got there Boston had gone ahead when Vazquez had scored on a Holt single.

This is Boston pitcherdom in the top of the the 8th:

E Mujica relieved C Bucholz
[single, single]
T Layne relieved E Mujica
[k, k]
B Badenhop relieved T Layne
[Dominguez RBI single, Marisnick ground-out]

Cloud 10 Creamery has great banana splits, but peculiar ice cream flavors. We had strawberry and pink peppercorn, chocolate sprinkled with Nutella powder, and sea urchin and cilantro. When we left it was the 10th and the Astros had the bases loaded with no outs. Marisnick drove in Petit and Fowler on a ground rule double, and Sipperstar closed things out.

Boston 9 (W: Allen Webster 3-1) Houston 4 (L: Scott Feldman 6-9)

Contributed by Mr. Happy

This game reminded me of eating fast food. What tastes so good at the very first bite morphs before long into that lasting bad taste in your mouth as you realize that you’ve just eaten processed fat, which is why I no longer can eat fast food. Call me an old fart, because I now qualify.

The Astros jumped on the youngster Allen Webster in the second frame, plating one to take an early 1-0 lead. The Astros extended that lead in the third inning to 2-0 on a single up the middle by Robbie Grossman, who incredibly would pick up an assist with his inaccurate noodle arm at the plate via the Piranha. Of course, if it’s that dump truck Napoli running, should that really count as an assist? I think not. But I digress…

The Astros doubled the lead to 4-0 on Matt Dominguez’s 14th dinger, which completed the Astros scoring for the evening. Despite his great defense and occasional power, we need more production out of the hot corner. I’m not sure that Dominguez is the long term answer there. The BoSox got one back in the bottom of the fourth, as Feldman’s bend-but-don’t-break style finally got nicked on a Yoenis Cespedes twin killing, which plated Pedroia. The game would stay at 4-1 until the fateful sixth inning.

You’d think that armed with a 4-1 lead and your alleged no. 1 starter on the hill in the sixth frame, you’ve got a really good chance of winning the game. However, in this game, you’d be deadass wrong. Feldman turned into a fucking pinball machine, allowing six of seven Red Sox players to reach base, three of whom scored, before the merciful hook came out in favor of feast or famine (mostly famine) Darin Downs. Personally, I don’t care for Downs, and I don’t get how and why Porter uses him so often in close games.

Not desirous of ruining the Red Sox love fest, Downs allowed two out of three to reach and two inherited runners to score before the hook came out in favor of flame-throwing rookie Mike Foltynewicz. Dustin Pedroia greeted the young hurler with a ground rule two bagger, plating the sixth and seventh runs of that inning for the home nine. The Red Sox added a single run in the eighth inning to complete the scoring.

I don’t know about you, but I pine for a real no. 1 starter, like the Astros of yore had in spades. A real snot-slinging shutdown inning eater. All’s I know is that it ain’t Feldman, who allowed 11 baserunners in his 5.1 frames. At his best, with the wind at his back, Feldman is a 3, but he usually is a 3/4.

T: 3:19.
Att: 38,065

Box

Twins win rubber game but hey, the Astros outscore Twins 13 to 11 for three game series.

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

Brett Oberholtzer pitched another good game and picked up anther loss. One mistake to the great Joe Mauer leading off the sixth inning was all it took to send hard luck Brett to Loserville. It was the only run Oberholtzer surrendered in his 7 innings of 6 hit, 4 strikeout, 0 walk pitching.

Former first round pick Kyle Gibson had a line similar to Olberhotzer’s as far as hits and strikeouts go, except he lasted 7.2 innings, also walked 2, and got the victory.

Josh Fields didn’t pitch well, giving up two runs on three hits and a walk in his third of an inning of pitching. Jose Altuve got another hit, he leads the AL and is one point behind MLB leader Troy Tulowitzski–who is set to undergo season ending surgery.

Dexter Fowler returned after missing 40 games with a right intercostal strain and was slotted into the clean-up position in the batting order. I think intercostal is a fancy medical term for rib-cage muscles. It seemed a bit odd to bat him fourth him in his first game back, but the Astros don’t do things that would be considered conventional.

Chris Carter didn’t hit a homer but his total of 28 is third in the league and just 3 HRs behind the co-leaders Abreu and Cruz. His totals come with 30 fewer ABs than Abreu and 80 fewer than Cruz. If he keeps hitting them at the current pace he’s on, he just might end up leading the league in home runs. Wow, that would be something.

The Astros head east Thursday to face Boston, Head East? Wasn’t that the band that sang that song about the guy who wanted someone to shave his wife before he went down for the last time? Anyway, there’s never been any reason not to bring that up. Scott Feldman takes the bump for the Astros and Allen Webster climbs the hill against the Astros in a game that starts at 6:10 pm CST.

I wonder if Albers will ever make it back, or if Crane will play at all this year?

Game Time: 2:45.
Umpires: HP–James Hoye. 1B–Adrian Johnson. 2B–Bob Davidson. 3B–Bill Welke.
Weather: INDOORS
Wind: 0 mph, .
Attendance: 16,480.

Twins 4, Astros 2
.Astros Recap

There’s nothing more satisfying than waking up on Tuesday to read the recap after a great Astros win on Monday! What? Oh–Neil T

So, I must admit, I fell asleep watching this game. Seriously, how long does it take to play nine innings? Last night it took 3 hours and 20 minutes. One of my favorite games EVER was the Brewers v. Astros. Sheets v. Oswalt. That game lasted 2 hours and 14 minutes. And it was some of the absolutely best baseball I’ve ever seen.

Apparently, Domingo Santana panicked with a single by Mauer to LF. Please note, that video is of the Twins broadcast so it is biased, yet accurate. And yes, you do hear someone yelling, “throw it.”

Hopefully the defensive woes end today and never come back again.