Astros 0, Rangers 1

Submitted by Reuben

Brett Oberholtzer became the third Astros starter in three games to throw a fantastic 7 innings but have no W to show for it. Following the offense’s Friday flake-out on Feldman and Chapman’s vulture-job on Cosart Saturday, it was the offense’s turn again Sunday afternoon, as Astro hitters botched the few minor scoring opportunities they had, grounding into 4 double plays and having 2 additional runners get caught stealing. Despite 5 hits and 3 walks, they did not have a baserunner even reach 2nd base against the Rangers.

Credit to Arlington hurler Martin Perez (not to be confused with centerfielder Leonys Martin) for a well-pitched game. He gave the Astros very little to hit, and seemed able to get ground balls at will. But these Houston hitters are in a team-wide slump, make no mistake. If hitting is contagious, not-hitting is fuckin’ viral these days in the Astros’ clubhouse. Perhaps they should be collectively referred to as The Traffic Jam, because they all seem to be stuck on the Interstate – from Dominguez and Carter on down to Grossman and Krauss, 9 of the 13 position players are batting between .120 and .190. Even the once-red-hot Dexter Fowler is 0-for his last 15, dropping his average to .235.

You know what though? I’d rather see the Astros lose 1-0 than 8-5, or 12-5, or 12-0 for that matter. Those kinds of scores were all too common last year. The pitching, outside of Harrell and 2 or 3 relievers, has looked much better in the early going than it did last season, and Oberholtzer held up his end of the deal and then some in this game. Obie tossed 7 innings and struck out 7, allowing 4 singles, a double, and no walks. The only run of the game, in the 6th, was hard to fault him for: consecutive seeing-eye groundball singles followed by a sac fly. He was outstanding, and efficient, only needing 89 pitches to get through 7. So why didn’t Porter send him back out for the 8th? Perhaps someone needs to remind Bo that baseball rules DO allow starting pitchers to pitch more than 7. This isn’t Little League, or the World Baseball Classic. Bringing in Jerome Williams to pitch the 8th of a 1-0 game was almost as much of a head-scratcher as foregoing Fields and Qualls in favor of Chapman for the 9th on Saturday. I’m sure there must be good reasons for these moves. Must be…

The offense will get better. Even Chris Carter probably won’t hit .150 for the entire year. Altuve is doing fine; Fowler, Jason Castro, I have faith in those guys. Hell, the odds are overwhelming that 2 or 3 of the other guys will wind up hitting .250-.280… just hard to say which ones at present. Or when their next hit with runners in scoring position and two outs in a tight game will happen. In the meantime, I will continue to find 1-0 baseball games entertaining if they continue to provide them.

Astros 6, Rangers 5

W: Chapman (1-0)
L: Soria (1-1)
SV: Bass (2)

The future of the Astros is starting to take shape. Jared Cosart was strong on the hill Saturday, going seven innings and only giving up three runs on six hits. He was staked to a 5-2 lead going to the eighth, mostly on the back of Robbie Grossman’s three-run blast during a five-run fourth inning.

Albers was brought in for the eighth, and he gave up a run by walking Andrus and giving up a double to Alex Rios. Arrogance, hubris and stupidity combined to make Rios try to steal third with Fielder up, and he was promptly thrown out by Corporan. Two ground ball outs got him out of the inning.

Porter dialled up his lefty reliever for the ninth. Chapman appears to have some value going against lefthanded hitters, but wow is he a crap shoot facing righties. Choice greeted his batting-practice fastball with a 420′ blast to right-center.

A walk and a sac bunt brought Porter to the mound for a focus session. Mixing in two very hittable strikes with pitches that were nowhere near the plate, Chapman got a clutch strikeout of a talented Shin-Soo Choo to end the bottom of the ninth.

With one out in the top of the 10th, Castro lashed a shot to the RF corner, where it hit an angle and rolled away from Rios in right, enabling Castro to get to third. Altuve followed with a sac fly to deep right that scored pinch-runner Marwin Gonzalez with the winning run.

Bass took the mound in the bottom of the frame and gave up a liner by Andrus that Altuve misplayed into a single. Black Amish stole second, setting up the play of the night.

Go here, now, and watch this. Really.

Villar. He a bad man with leather.

Fielder was walked intentionally. Bass pounded the low strike zone to Kouzmanoff, trying to get a double play, but when Andrus stole third he pulled the string with a high slow curve that was unexpected and swung through for out #2. He teased Choice with a couple of pitches outside the zone, then got the overanxious hitter to offer on one away, resulting in a nubber to Carter for the final out.

It’s unlikely, but the Astros can take the series with a win today. At least this one snapped a 12-game losing streak to these yokels. It’s going to be fun, watching these smug cocksuckers on their inevitable slide down the hill. Stick those rally hats up your ass, you stupid claw and antler morons.

contributed by NeilT

Howdy! My friend NeilT was riding the MS 150 this weekend, and since I don’t have much to do these days I told him I’d write his recap. This is the first time in most of y’all’s lives that I haven’t been running for governor, and I need to find some new hobbies. There’s not much to do these days except hang out with Anita at the mansion and plunk the coyotes.

Funny thing though, this turned out to be my weekend to write the recap anyway, ‘cause my favorite baseball team, the Texas team, is playing that team down in Houston. You know what I think about Houston. It is far to the left of the rest of this great nation state. It has that mayor who wants to be a den mother, it has that white fella with the ear surplus who ran against me for governor, and that ding dong who ran a couple of times before that. There’s nothing good to be said about Houston, except that my Texas team whips their butts in baseball. Of course everybody whips their butts in baseball.

Anyway, speaking of butts, I’ve been a bit at loose ends lately so I’ve decided right here today that I’m going to make an announcement: I am going to run for President. It’s like Anita says, that’s just what America needs. I’m going to bring the Texas miracle to Washington. Do y’all hate Seattle too? They’re all pot-smokin’, coffee drinkin’, yoga posin’ pond scum.

I’ve been trying to come up with a campaign slogan. Anita said my first choice, Better Red than Ted, didn’t make sense. Why would I rather be a communist than Ted? I explained to her that the Red was Republican Red, not Moscow Red, but she said that Ted was already Republican. I explained to her that it didn’t have to make sense, it just needed to sound good, but she rejected it flat out. Anita’s a smart woman, but sometimes I think she doesn’t understand politics.

So my next choice was Say it Loud, I’m for Rick and I’m Proud, but Anita said that I was ripping off a James Brown lyric, and even though we’ve got the same hair I probably couldn’t carry off the dance moves. On reflecting I don’t think it’s a good idea anyway. I might offend some Afro-Americans by ripping off lyrics from James Brown—didn’t he write that song for the soundtrack for Django Unchained? I’d hate to lose the black vote.

So I decided to steal a slogan from the Astros, ‘cause no one follows them anyway: How do you think this sounds? RICK PERRY FOR AMERICA: IT’S A PROCESS. I’m pretty pleased. Anita said that it didn’t make sense again, but you know what? When you got an idea, you have to stick to it. You have to have unchanging principals that don’t bend and don’t compromise. I’ve been saying that same thing ever since Bill Clinton was President, and Texas is what it is today because I’ve stuck to that, low taxes, and a balanced budget.

I guess I’m supposed to tell you about the baseball game, but frankly I got bored. You know what? Who Me Darvish didn’t even give up a hit until the sixth, and the only thing that happened before I went to bed in the 8th was that little short fella walked. That Feldman fella was just as boring. He gave up a double in the 2nd, and a single in the 5th, and he walked a couple, but there just wasn’t much going on. Don’t these pitchers know they’re supposed to put on a show? When Qualls finally came in for Feldman in the 8th I went to bed. Y’all will just have to check the score in the morning.

Contributed by Mr. Happy

The Astros break out of their three game skid by busting out the lumber against Toronto and riding the left arm of young Dallas Keuchel. Villar, who’s got some pop in his bat, hit a three run dinger while Robby Grossman, who had been mired in a 2-33 slump, added a two run shot and Jason Castro added a solo shot to round out the scoring. The bats only generated eight hits, but when three of them leave the premises, it really helps, and the team pulled its collective BA above .200. That gives the ball club 14 home runs on the young season, which is among the leaders in MLB. Who’d a thunk it, especially with Carter deeply mired in a strikeout spree. The Astros had as many strikeouts as hits, but they were 2-4 with RISP and only left four on the sacks.

Keuchel had tremendous command of everything tonight and was working both sides of the dish, which I believe is key to his future success. In my opinion, you need to work that inner half of the plate to keep hitters honest. Keuchel doesn’t have plus stuff, but he seems to know how to pitch to contact. Keuchel scattered five hits in his seven frames, while striking out six and issuing one free pass. Only the pesky Colby Rasmus, who had taken him out of the yard before, did so tonight.

The bully made it interesting in the ninth frame, with FIELDS! at the helm of the good ship Titanic. Inheriting a 6-1 lead, before you knew it, it was 6-3 and Bass was on with one out to get. Bass induced a nubber that he fielded and promptly threw over Krauss’s head, and it became 6-4 with the tying run at the plate and Joey Bats on deck. However, Bass was up to the task and induced another easily fielded ground ball that secured the 6-4 win and notched Bass his first save of the season.

The Game Zone was noticeably silent tonight, so I was lonely there. The Astros travel to Arlington for a three game set against the stRangers. First pitch tonight is at 7:05 CDT. Come check us out in the Game Zone. We don’t bite. Really. We might give you some shit, but we don’t bite.

After falling behind the Astros tried to comeback but the Blue Jays would have nothing of it, beating the ‘Stros 7-3

W: Morrow (1-1)
L: Harrell (0-2)

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

The Astros got off to a rough start Wednesday night, allowing Morrow to strike out the side in the top of the fist inning, then having Harrell take the mound in the bottom half and giving up two runs on three hits.

The Astros improved in the second inning, allowing Morrow only two strikeouts. Harrell also improved, he surrendered no runs and just gave up a meaningless double to Rasmus.

Continuing to get better one inning at a time, only one Houston batter struck out in their half of the inning and in the bottom of the third, Harrell got the Blue Jays three up, three down.

The Astros were able to get runners on the corners with one out in the fourth inning only to leave them stranded after following up with two strike outs. The score remained Toronto 2, Houston 0. The Blue Jays were able to add three runs in the bottom of the fifth, thanks in part to Matt Dominguez’s throwing the ball to the right fielder instead of the second baseman. Harrell was done, relieved by Jerome Williams, who put out the fire.

The Good Guys attempted a comeback and scored three runs of their own in the sixth. Dexter Fowler led off with a single and Alex Presley smashed a two run bomb, his second of the season. Jose Altuve tripled after Jason Castro’s fly out, and scored the third run after Chris Carter grounded out to third, followed by a Krauss ground out, leaving the score at 5 to 3 in favor of the Blue Jays.

Williams was doing a fair job in relief, after walking Goins, Williams picked off of first in a close play that might have been overturned if challenged but no challenge was issued. Williams appearance later came to a halt when he strained his groin while delivering a pitch to Edwin Encarnacion. Josh Zeid took over for Williams and got Encarnacion on a strike out to end the inning.

Toronto added two more runs in the seventh inning with a two run homer by Brett Lawrie, which was basically the final nail in the coffin. The Astros have a hard time getting men on base and when they do, they have a harder time driving them in. It’s unfortunate that they gave away two or three runs with sloppy play in the field, but it’s compounded by such an anemic offense.

Harrell took the loss but wasn’t his usual awful self, not saying he was good. He threw 107 pitches only 59 were strikes. However, he pitched well enough to stay in the rotation for now or at least probably hasn’t pitched himself out of the rotation yet, but mostly because the Astros are the worst.

Only 13,569 at the game, the Astros can’t draw on the road. They are so shitty in the minds of Blue Jay baseball game attendees people choose to sit out and wait for the next good team to come to town.

Game Time: 3:09.
Umpires: HP–Jerry Layne. 1B–Hunter Wendelstedt. 2B–Gabe Morales. 3B–Mike Estabrook.
Weather: INDOORS
Wind: 0 mph, dome or roof closed.