Mariners 9, Astros 8

W: Iwakuma (1-0)
L: Keuchel (2-2)
SV: Rodney (7)

The needs of the marketing department clashed with an uncompromising calendar Saturday, as the Astros held their annual Cinco de Mayo celebration on Tres de Mayo. Just like their season, close is the best you can hope for these days.

Keuchel and Iwakuma dueled through the first five innings and Houston had a 2-0 lead going to the sixth. The Astros claimed the lead in the third, on a single-triple-sac fly run by Gonzalez, Villar and Altuve. Non-Mexicans, all. Oh, the irony.

In the sixth, Romero tripled and was driven in by Cano’s single. Keuchel later said that he’d started to feel sluggish in the sixth and in the seventh the luchador masks came off for good. After walking the bases loaded, Keuchel was lifted and so were the Shit Gates.

Cisnero gave up a walk to tie the game, and then a two-run double to Saunders, followed by a two-run single by Romero and an RBI single by Cano before he got Hart to fly out. Valdes replaced him and continued the flood of excrement by serving up a double and then a two-run homer to Smoak. After giving up that eight-spot in the seventh, Cisnero’s ERA is 7.36 and Valdes’ is 12.27.

Fields (8.74) and Williams (6.35) pitched the last two innings. The only way to measure the Astros’ bullpen strength is by judging the speed of the current in the Shit River they travel on every day.

Houston made it interesting in the bottom of the seventh when they picked up four runs, two on homers by Karter and Villar and an error by Miller on Fowler’s single that scored Altuve. In the eighth, Karter tripled, scoring Dominguez and was later driven in by Presley to make it 9-8. With the bases loaded and two out, Rodney came on and got Altuve to fly out to right. The Astros went quietly in the ninth and this battle of bad teams was over.

There were actually some bright spots. There was a decent-sized crowd. Keuchel was good, for a while. Karter got a couple of loud hits and didn’t strike out(!). Gonzalez got three hits, Villar got two and drove in three.

Dios mio, that bullpen es malo. Muy mal.

Astros 5
Sea Cucumbers 4

contributed by NeilT

I’m obsessed with the Mariners. I don’t just hate them, I despise them. I loathe them. I can spend days thinking of nothing but their despicableness, their foulness, their utter . . . utter . . . Marinerness. I delight in their failures. And what holds for my feelings for the club holds double for their fans, the Gobs.

But my late father was the best of men, and he always said you couldn’t really understand others until you knew their story. “Walk a mile in their shoes,” he would say, “before you criticize.”

I needed to spend a day as a Seattlun. For one day in Houston, I would live the Seattle life.

I woke up early and went straight to yoga. I picked hot yoga, because I figured it was the weirdest kind of yoga that didn’t involve contact with other people’s body parts, and I figured weird would be the kind of yoga Seattluns would like. Have you been to hot yoga? I threw up once at hot yoga. The room smells, your mat smells, you smell. So does the person next to you. It was the perfect start to my Seattle day.

***
Not much happened in the first two innings. Altuve led-off with a double, but was stranded. King Felix got two Ks. Smoak–there’s something I’m supposed to remember about Seattluns and smoke–was the first Mariner on base with a walk in the second. King Felix struggled a bit in the second, giving up walks to Krauss and Dominguez.

***
On my way home from yoga, I passed State Senator Rodney Ellis in bike lycra riding his bike to work, and I remembered: it’s take your bike to work day. That was perfect, just the sort of thing a Seattlun would do. I took my shower in the yard under the irrigation system–it wasn’t raining so I had to improvise–loaded up my bike and drove to work.

***
Stuff happened for the Stros in the 3rd. Altuve led off with a bunt single, and the Stros scored two on three singles and an error.

***
On the way up the elevator I had a funny conversation with my partner. Just like a lot of Seattluns, this guy I share my life with is my partner. I actually have a lot of partners.

“Neil, are those yoga pants?” Well of course they were, I was a Seattlun for a day, and I told him so. “They don’t fit very well.” “They’re Kris’s,” I told him, “so are the sandals.”

“Birkenstocks aren’t they? They looked a little small.” I explained that you had to sacrifice for authenticity. I also explained that I didn’t have any wool socks, so the brown dress socks were the best I could do.

***
In the fourth Peacock looked like the 30-game winner that we know he is. Villar stole second but was stranded.

***
I went to Catalina coffee after my 9:00 conference call. I know Seattluns like coffee, but I couldn’t think of any coffee shops with ties to Seattle in Houston. Catalina was sure to be chock full of scenesters, and sure enough my yoga pants fit right in. So did my press-on compass neck tat. They didn’t serve granola though. I didn’t know what else Seattluns eat, so I had a chocolate croissant, which I like, with my cortado, which I didn’t know anything about but which sounded Northwestern.

***
In the 5th, Peacock struggled, giving up two on a Zunino homer. Zunino started on my fantasy team, but I felt no joy. The Astros took the lead again in the bottom of the 5th on a Krauss single to drive in Castro.

***
I wanted to go to Goro and Gun for lunch. I figured vegetarian ramen would be the very thing, but it turned out I had a lunch to go to. The lunch was banquet chicken, but I pretended it was tofu. It was lousy chicken but delicious tofu. There were engineers at my table. “I didn’t remember you had so many piercings” one of them said. They were fake, but I explained that all of us Seattluns had piercings.

***
In the 6th the Mariners went up on a two-run Seager double. Like every Astros game, the sold-out stands were packed equally with Mariners and Astros fans. “Did you see that, dude!” the guy next to me in the number 420 jersey for player “Smoke It” chortled. I took off the fake piercings.

***
I had another call in the afternoon and went back to my office. I ran into another of my partners in the elevator. “Neil,” he sounded concerned, “is that flannel?” I told him it was. “It’s an odd color for a shirt.” Teal and silver I explained. “And it matches the dye in your hair. Are you ok?”

***
The seventh came, the seventh went. Cisneros replaced Peacock for two outs, then Sipp came in for Cisneros. Sipp? Who is Sipp? King Felix was also done. The guy next to me did his yoga stretches, and I went off to the wash room to rinse out the dye and wash off the fake tat.

***
I had a package from REI at work, a new seat post for my road bike. It was just a little taste of Seattle. I left early and went to D & Q for a Pike’s Pale Amber Ale, from Seattle. I was also listening to Seattlun music as I drove around town today. I started out with that weird baby record by Nirvana, but something was wrong with the stereo and it sounded really distorted. I switched to Jimi Hendrix, but I have to admit, Jimi Hendrix is kinda cloying to me. Band of Horses sang that song that’s either about dumpsters or a horse with no name. Bill Frisell fiddled with pedals, and may or may not have played something. I liked the Fleet Foxes though.

***
Sipp–Sipp? SIPP!–pitched well through the bottom of the 8th striking out Hart and Smoak–Smoke? In the bottom of the 8th the Astros tied it on a walk and a single.

***
I love Airline Seafood. It is one of the finest places in Houston, and it sells great Gulf seafood. Normally I’d go and buy some fine redfish or grouper, maybe even snapper, and usually shrimp, but today I went and bought some salmon. “Will you throw it to me?” They are such good people, “we can throw you a whole fish if you want.” “No, I might miss the whole fish,” they had told me that a whole salmon was slippery.

He put my filet in a plastic bag, took a couple of steps back, and tossed me the salmon. I caught it.

Tie game.

***
SIPP! got the first runner in the 9th, then Qualls came in for SIPP! Bass replaced Qualls in the 10th and pitched through the 11th. The bullpen was outstanding. Defense was fine too, the whole game. It wasn’t just that there were no errors, there were fine double plays in the third and fourth. There was a bam-bam challenge call-out that was the highlight of the game in the top of the 10th, Altuve to Guzman. It was tight. Pitching was tight.

And in the bottom of the 11th Furbush—let’s not allow any cheap humor here, let’s have some empathy for Hoes—loaded the bases then allowed a Singleton Baltimore chop over the third baseman’s head to drive in the winning run. Astros 5, Sea Pricks 4.

***
I hate yoga pants on men. I hate granola. I find Nirvana inane, and Jimi Hendrix cloying. I don’t like King Felix’s neck tat, and Birkenstocks never fit right unless you’re wearing wool socks. And I hate the Mariners. When I fart, I face Cancun.

I’ve got to admit though, fish tossing is kinda fun.

Astros get shut out by Nats 7-0

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

BOX

All time Houston Astros great and future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio wore number seven. There are seven notes in the traditional Western diatonic scale. Agatha Christie wrote The Seven Dials Mystery and Seven Pillars of Wisdom is a book by T.E. Lawrence. Stephen Covey wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Someone spent seven years in Tibet and wrote a book about it.

In Islam there are seven heavens. The number of layers of the Earth in Islamic religion is seven. According to Hinduism, there are seven worlds in the universe, seven seas in the world and seven Rishies (seven gurus) called sapta rishis. Of course there are the so-called Seven Deadly Sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. And the contrasting Seven Virtues: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility. And the seven days it took to create this mess.

There were Seven Cities of Gold. Atlantis had seven islands. It is also the number of stellar objects in the solar system visible to the naked eye from Earth – the Sun, the Moon and the five classical naked eye planets: Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.

Did you know almost all mammals have 7 cervical vertebrae? A seven-spot Ladybird has, you got it, seven spots. There is a Seinfeld episode “The Seven:” Seven is the name George Costanza desires to give his first-born, having allegedly promised this to the widow of baseball great Mickey Mantle (whose uniform number was 7). The 7th Inning stretch is attributed to the 27th U.S. President, William Howard Taft.

In Buddhism, Buddha walked 7 steps at his birth. The Seven Virgins mountain range is in Sri Lanka. Mahatma Gandhi’s list of the destructive Seven Blunders of the World that cause violence: Wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, religion without sacrifice and politics without principle.

In Galician folklore, a seventh son will be a werewolf.

The Astros got whacked by seven runs last night.

If you care to find out more about the game check out the Game Zone commentary. Thursday is an off day, Friday the Astros welcome the Sea Hags with Brad Peacock facing off against Felix Hernandez.

Damn, that Gandhi dude was smart.

Umpires: HP: Paul Schrieber. 1B: Will Little. 2B: Mark Carlson. 3B: Ted Barrett.
Weather: 74 degrees, partly cloudy.
Wind: 13 mph, In from CF.
T: 3:02.
Att: 25,172.
Venue: Minute Maid Park.

Astros 5, A’s 1

Submitted by Reuben

By 3:42 Central Time Sunday afternoon everyone wanted to know: Who is this Collin Mc… Hugh? Whatshisname. Who is that guy? Where did he come from? Whose shirts does he wear? And why is it that no one could remember ever hearing of him before last week?

Stories vary widely about the origins of the mysterious Mr. McHugh. Some say he had never played professional baseball until a month ago, when he was discovered performing Herculean feats of farming prowess in a cornfield outside of Lucas, Kansas, and convinced by an Astros employee to try throwing a baseball. Others insist that he’s played major league baseball for years, except his name used to be Johan Santana, and he used to throw left-handed.

And then there are those who believe that he was found in a crate, hidden in a warehouse belonging to the US Government, the product of top-secret experiments conducted by Nazis to create the ultimate soldier/curve-ball specialist. Oddly, no one in the Astros’ front office can quite remember whose idea it was to trade for Mr. McHugh, or where they’d even heard of him. One source familiar with the Astros’ thinking explains that if you squint at the computer printout of McHugh’s career Sabermetric stats, it looks a little bit like an image of Jesus wearing a baseball cap.

Easily the most plausible theory of Mr. McHugh’s genesis, however, involves Astros manager Bo Porter, who, of course, is largely, if not solely, responsible for every win or loss earned by the club. Fans and 3rd-string Chronicle writers alike laud Porter’s brilliance for his rumored use of a time machine to travel 20 years into the past and enroll a young McHugh in a little-known pitching academy perched upon a mountainside in Nepal, run by a group of mute Buddhist monks.

Believers in this theory praise Porter in particular for coming up with the idea to plant a post-hypnotic suggestion in McHugh’s mind, that would prevent him from tapping into his vast pitching abilities until he donned an Astros uniform and had Jason Castro whisper the mystic phrase “yangervis solarte” in his ear. However, Porter draws heavy criticism from the same sources because, they argue, any halfway-competent MLB manager with access to a time machine would have gone back to 2009 and insisted that his organization draft Mike Trout, and not, say, Jiovanni Mier.

While his history prior to last week may be shrouded in obscurity, what is perfectly clear is that Mr. McHugh pitched another dominant baseball game Sunday, tossing 8.666666667 innings of 2-hit ball, allowing 1 meaningless run and striking out 7. Unfortunately, I was not able to watch the game, although… can any of us truly be sure that we’ve actually seen Collin McHugh pitch? Or have we just dreamt it?

**Check out the GameZone thread, full of hearsay and tall tales.

**And the mlb.com boxscore, with the “facts”.

contributed by NeilT

I love the A’s. If I didn’t have a kick-ass team like the Astros to follow, I might well like following the A’s, what with their Southern Baptists stylings of green and gold polyester with white shoes, and Mr. Bean as their general manager. Plus they have a storied history that could serve as a model for other franchises.

When Connie Mack finally stepped down as manager of the A’s in 1950, they had a losing record that covered almost all of the 17 years from their last dynasty. Overall during that period Connie Mack would lose 1,489 games and win 986. That’s a winning percentage of .398. In 1950 they finished with the worst record in baseball, 52-102. Mack had given a minority interest in the A’s to his three sons, and they finally did the only thing that they could do: they fired the manager. It’s just like King Lear.

Being good sons, having slain their father, they immediately fell to disagreeing. Mack had owned the team with Tom Shibe, and then Shibe’s sons, and Connie, Jr. and the Shibe heirs allied against Roy and Earle Mack and put the team up for sale. Roy and Earle had a first option, and to buy the team they mortgaged it to Connecticut General Life Insurance Company for $1.74 million, with annual payments of $200,000 for the first five years of the loan.

The team had been cheaply run since the 30s, except for a brief period in 1950 when Connie Jr. tried to spend some money on improvements. Now Roy and Earle — you got to wonder who played the banjo and who played the fiddle — did what their father would have done: they cut costs. They had a winning season in 1952, but otherwise they were about as bad as a bad baseball team could be. They were purposefully bad, and it wasn’t for any rebuilding purpose either.

The Phightin’ Phils meanwhile were playing well. In 1950 the A’s were in last place while the Phils went to the World Series. Roy and Earle again faced the problem and cut more player and front office costs, turned over the rents to Connecticut General, cut minor league teams, and began phightin’ among themselves. In 1954 the A’s finished 51-103, with season attendance of 304,666, or 1,978 per game.

It’s hard to imagine a team winning only 51 games.

By 1954, the Macks were heading to bankruptcy, the Phils controlled Philadelphia, and the American League owners were bitching about the lousy gate. The American League president, Will Harridge, forced a move to the Midwest, to Kansas City, where the Yankees AAA affiliate played in Blues Stadium. Arnold Johnson bought the club. In 1955 opening day for the A’s was in Kansas City. Johnson — and write this in your notes ‘cause there may be a quiz — owned Yankee Stadium and was a business partner of the Yankee owners. And it wasn’t like the Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York Giants. No one in Philadelphia seemed unhappy to see them go.

The take from Johnson was $3.5 million, which paid off the mortgage and gave a nice return. The Macks sold Shibe Park to the Phils.

***

With thanks to Wikipedia. There’s also a very good article here: http://sabr.org/research/departure-without-dignity-athletics-leave-philadelphia

***

What can you say about a game like tonight’s? I have to admit, I left in the 9th after fields? gave up the first three runs on sucky relief work and sucky fielding. It was almost 11, and I wanted to go fishing in the morning.

Into the 9th the score was tied, 0-0, or 5-5, or 25-25. Ok, 5-5. Peacock gave up 4 in the second, and one more in the fourth, and did not look like the 30-game winner we all know he is. It wasn’t tied because of excellent pitching and fine crisp defense. Nossir. It was tied because both teams had sucked in about equal ways, with lots of walks given by Peacock, men stranded, and poor fielding, but in the 3rd the the ‘Stros scored one off of Chavez, and in the 4th scored four more.

Going into the 9th, tie game, I was thinking man, we could win this thing.

We didn’t. In the 9th the Astros showed their love, taking it at about every angle in every orifice. I left maybe 4 batters into the 9th, walked 8 blocks to my car, drove up out of the garage and drove through downtown and midtown and Montrose to home, and when I got home the ninth inning wasn’t over yet. It was the longest 9th inning ever, and the pukiest. The A’s scored 5 ER off of fields? and 2 off of Bass.

End of the game, 5-12 A’s. The A’s had sent 48 people to the plate in the 9th, including their team trainer, the headshot coordinator, and the dog walker.

Thank goodness I love the A’s, because otherwise I’d hate the A’s.

Athletics 10 Astros 1

Contributed by Mr. Happy

Little did we know it at the time, but this one was over in the top of the first frame, when Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods clubbed the first of his two long balls to give Oakland and Scott Kazmir (3-0) an early 2-0 lead that they would never relinquish. Poor Brett Oberholltzer (0-4) was pretty ordinary tonight, leaving too many pitches over the plate, and the A’s didn’t miss them. Alberto Callaspo also contributed a line drive home run as the Athletics garnered 14 knocks in the game. As bad as it was, it could have been worse—the Athletics were 3-14 w/RISP and had 11 LOBsters. The Astros made five, count ‘em, five fucking errors. Sheesh. Pick up that damn ball for crying out loud.

Oberholtzer didn’t get out of the fourth frame, surrendering six earnies and two free passes. Paul Clemens relieved Oberholzer and pitched rather ineffectively until the home plate umpire, Toby Basner, ran him for dotting former Astro Jed Lowrie in what appeared to be a hangover from last week’s shenanigans. If Clemens gets fined, I’d demand that Porter pay it, because I’m convinced that Porter gave that order. On the bright side, if there is one in a 10-1 ass kicking, punching bag Jerome Williams, whose lifetime BAA against the Athletics was around .370 in over 100 ABs, pitched two scoreless and hitless frames to bring his ERA down under 6, so he’s got that going for him.

Despite only putting one run, the Astros had ten hits. Jose Altuve led the way with three hits, while Matt Dominguez and Jonathan Villar contributed two hits apiece. Situational hitting was a bug-a-boo again because the club was 1-10 w/RISP and had 11 LOBsters. Saddle up sports fans, we’ve got the A’s again tonight, with Brad Peacock taking the hill against Jesse Chavez in another rematch from last week. Let’s pray that this one goes better than the rematch last night.