Wallop O’s Eleven to Zip

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

A little over a month ago I was woken up by a phone call. “Do you want to go see the Monkees?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess so.” I was a big fan of the Monkees when I was around eleven years old, but by the time I turned 13, I had completely turned on them. I couldn’t get over the fact that they weren’t organically formed. For some reason I let that override the fact that they actually produced some good songs, a few pop classics.

Bud is gone. Maxwell is too (Who saw that coming?). Two of the oldest guys on the team. So it was kind of nice to see that losing those two savvy vets didn’t have a disastrous effect on the team’s ability to win a game here and there.

The Astros took the lead scoring four runs in the second inning, but with the quality of arms in the bullpen, and knowing that usually four runs isn’t enough, they scored five more runs in the fourth inning. Four of those runs were provided by Jason Castro’s grand slam, it was his 13th home run of the season. Also Matt Dominguez added his 14th homer of the year and Robbie Grossman hit his very first.

Brett Oberholtzer started and was excellent, giving up only 3 hits in his seven innings while striking out six and walking none, earning his first career win. Lo Chia-Jen and Jose Cisnero each worked a scoreless inning in relief.

So, I didn’t see the game, I saw the Monkees and they were okay, I was impressed by the skill of the backing band and Peter Tork’s musicianship. Mickey and Mike harmonized really well. They did a lot of the songs they composed, that were album cuts but not necessarily featured on the TV show.

A couple of kids came out of the audience to sing lead on Daydream Believer. Most of the crowd seemed more excited than I was but it was still a good time and more than just nostalgia.

For the record, after dropping two Wednesday games in a row, the Astros are back in the victory column, raising the Wednesday record to 11 and 6. Tonight, I hear some new guy on the Orioles is starting against the Astros… Bud something or other… I don’t know if that’s true but or not, maybe just a rumor. Jordan Lyles is pitching for Houston.

Attendance – 25,265
Game Time – 3:03
Temperature – 80

Orioles 4, Astros 3

Contributed by Reuben

Another strange loss for the Astros. Normally a team might like their chances of winning a game in which they hold their opponent to 3 hits, a game in which they execute a straight steal of home, a game in which their bullpen finishes the game with 2 2/3 scoreless innings. But the Astros are not a normal team, are they? And oh yeah, it’s baseball, besides. Strange losses are part of the charm, I suppose. Hmmm.

The 8-9-1-2 sequence in the order collected all of the Astros’ hits: Dominguez, Grossman, Villar, and Altuve were a combined 7-for-14. Unfortunately the middle of the order couldn’t muster any support: 0-for-19 with 1 walk and 8 strikeouts.

The Astros actually took a 3-0 lead in this game, and Lucas Harrell seemed to be cruising early on. Filling in for the soon-to-be-probably-traded Bud Norris, Harrell did not allow a hit over the first 3 innings. But in the 4th, he walked the leadoff guy, wasn’t as sharp out of the stretch, the home plate ump didn’t give him some calls he wanted, and Harrell began to Harrell his way into trouble: 3 walks in the inning, and a costly 2-out, 2-run single. In the 6th, another leadoff walk was followed by a slump-buster HR for Chris Davis. And that was the ballgame.

The play of the game, of course, was Jonathan Villar’s steal of home. Enjoy the video.

Blue Jays 12
Astros 6

contributed by NeilT

By my mental math, there are really only nine weeks of regular season baseball left, and I haven’t been so ready to get the season over with since last year. The Astros are playing the Blue Jays, who are from Toronto, which is in Canada, which is on the North American continent and in the American League, but bleh. It’s hard to think of anything to say about Canadians.

This afternoon I talked to Miss Lola about it, at her usual table at TC’s. She was drinking a vodka gimlet, made with that weird fake green Rose’s lime product, and she made it clear that it wasn’t Russian vodka. She’s boycotting Russian vodka, and she told me to tell you that you should too. Grey Goose, she says, if you drink vodka. Not Stoli. I had a Shiner Bock, and Miss Lola told me I needed to take better care of my figure.

“Vodka, honey. It’s a buzz without so many calories.”

“Miss Lola,” says I, “This season’s been so long, and next year doesn’t look better. Look at this team. I hate Bedard leaving games to the bullpen. He would never pull that shit on a decent team. Hector Ambriz, Travis Blackley, Lucas Harrell, Wesley Wright. How many times do I have to watch the bullpen lose? How many times do I have to watch Brett Wallace fail? Altuve and Castro have probably landed where they’ll be offensively the rest of their career, They’d be nice pieces on a good team, but they’re not stars. Dominguez has 11 errors and is hitting .229, and the infield’s probably better than the outfield. Barnes I guess would be fun to watch in center, at least from what I’ve heard on the radio, but I don’t have Comcast and can’t watch. The most interesting thing going on is Harrell getting traded. If he gets traded.”

“Ennui, darlin’,” she sipped her gimlet, “even us cowgirls get the blues.”

It was a bit hot in TCs, Houston in the summer and all, and Miss Lola dabbed at the sweat on her upper lip with a napkin. It was funny, but for a moment the tricky light made it seem like Miss Lola had a 5 o’clock shadow. She told me once that they kept the lights low in TCs so that a girl could show herself off to her best advantage. She’s always a beautiful woman though.

“Miss Lola, can you tell me anything good about this season? Anything?” I was on a roll and I didn’t wait for her. “They’ve won four games in July. The team ERA for starters is 4.78 and for relievers is 5.06. They’ve given up 160 more runs than they’ve scored. They have 936 strike outs!” I was getting loud. “Miss Lola, dammit, the team OPS is .666! .666! We’re sucking on Satan’s hind tit!”

“They finally beat Oakland?” It was a question, not a statement, and it came from a guy two tables over. I guess I was making a scene.

“On an Oakland error!” I shouted at him. “We’re tied for worst in the majors with 73 errors!”

Someone spoke up from the bar. “They’re tied for most double plays.”

“Only because there’s so much damn foot traffic!”

Things were pretty quiet in TC’s now. Finally Miss Lola spoke. “They drafted Appel.”

“Prospects. I’m sick of fucking prospects!” I realized I was standing, fists pumping at the sky, and I was screaming. I collapsed back into the chair. Suddenly it hit me, hard as a punch. “This is the worst season ever. This really is the worst season ever.” I put my head on the table and wept.

Mostly they left me alone and let me cry. I guess I wasn’t the first guy at TC’s to cry about baseball. Guys came by from time to time and patted me on the shoulder and said it would be all right. And then Miss Lola spoke. “Just think about it honey. So much worse happens to a girl that sometimes you have to hold tight to what you love. There’s still green grass and chalk lines. There’s young men full of hope and promise. There’s beer and peanuts and a pitcher and a batter and the sound of a ball in a glove. There’s talking on the GameZone. Win, lose, screw that, everybody wins, everybody loses.” She handed me a napkin and I blew my nose. “You go get a mani-pedi, or you go watch a game.”

I went home to drink a martini and watch a game. It’s like Keats said, there’s truth in beauty.

Blue Jays 4 Astros 0

contributed by Mr. Happy

It indeed was the same old song tonight for the Astros “hitters,” and I use that term loosely. Two hits tonight. Two measly fucking hits, off of soft-tossing portsider Mark Buerhle – who hasn’t exactly been very successful this season – were all the Astros could scratch out. Buehrle walked two en route to a complete game whitewashing of the Good Guys. Bedard didn’t go very deep, tossing 95 pitches in his five frames, but he was amazingly effective again, scattering three hits and issuing one free pass as well as one earnie while striking out six. Bedard should sue his teammates for non-support. The GameZone was as dead as the Astros bats tonight.

The only good news is that the Astros didn’t commit an error in this game. That’s about it, other than Bedard’s fine performance en route to another L. Harrell is lost and did not look good. His mechanics were breaking down while he was out there as he seemed to make some mechanical adjustments during the game, which is the sign of pure desperation. Harrell’s MO is to pitch away from contact early in the count, get behind and then have to come into the plate and the Happy Zone, surrendering four hits, three earnies and two walks during his 51 pitch three inning performance.

In tomorrow night’s game, Jordan Lyles, who has looked more like the Jordan Lyles of last season (4-4 4.78) toes the slab against knuckleballer R.A. Dickey (8-11 4.75). Come visit us in the GameZone.

Astros lose in Astros fashion.

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

In what is becoming the norm, the Astros starting pitcher has a good outing while being backed by just enough run support to leave the game with the team leading, only to see the relief corps blow it by soon allowing the other team to score the go ahead runs. Bud Norris, in what may very well be his last outing as an Astro in MMP, was the victim of such a folly Wednesday afternoon.

So the Wednesday mojo is gone, now the Astros have a losing streak going of 2. I think they have only won four games all month. They lose a lot. It looks by the recent maneuvering that the main impetus of this team at this point is to win the rights to the number one draft pick. That’s a hell of a goal, losing to win.

Anyone who has been a fan of the Astros for any length of time know it’s been a franchise of ups and downs. This is the most down the franchise has ever been. They are deep in a hole and sold off all their good shovels. They are now retooling their foundry in hopes that they will have some good new shovels in a in couple of years. Maybe they will dig out, maybe not. If they ever do hit level ground, they will see some big hills to climb.

Crane and company make it sound so easy. Just destroy everything, and start over, and everything will be better in the future. In Crane’s vacuum the other teams don’t have as good of a plan, he is going to use his new shovels to take down the biggest hills, in two or three more years, his team will be king of the hill. Hope it works but right now it just seem like an ongoing exercise in folly.

Thorsday they travel to Toronto and face the Blue Jays, Eric Bedard goes against Mark Buehrle with a 7:07 PM start time.

Attendance – 24831
Game Time – 3:10
Temperature – 73

Astros 5, A’s 4

Contributed by Reuben

After trying and trying, in what must have seemed like a very obvious, suspicious way, to give away Monday’s game, the A’s finally managed to let the Astros win Tuesday night in front of 32,249…waitaminute, can that be right? The Astros got over 30,000 people to come to one of their baseball games? And 60% of the ticket-buyers weren’t Yankee, Red Sox, or Rangers fans? WTF? What’s going on here… do these fans actually know who Cosart and Villar are, and care about what they symbolize, the new wave of legitimate young talent that they herald? Or are there just waaayyy more Bay Area transplants in the Houston metro area than I ever thought?

Well, whatever their reason for coming, I envy the fans who were there, because they got to see a great game, albeit one replete with slap-dickery on the part of the Oakland squad. For the 2nd straight game, the A’s, perhaps feeling some pity for their whipping boys the Astros, committed 3 errors and this time the Astros actually capitalized. The first one was a hilarious, physics-defying throw by A’s starter Jarrod Parker, where, having fielded a dribbler about 10 feet from first base, he somehow managed to shot-put the ball 12 feet over the head of the first baseman, allowing Brandon Barnes to scamper to 2nd, from whence he would score after multiple sacrifices (bunt by Villar, fly by Altuve).

At the time, Altuve’s sac fly knotted the game at 2 and it would remain thus until the 8th inning when Jose Cisnero, who apparently won the coin flip to be the setup man for the evening, hit Josh Donaldson with an inside fastball with 2 outs and nobody on. The painful-looking HBP set the stage for another massive go-ahead 2-run homer by another A’s lefty batter with a poor batting average – in this instance, Brandon Moss. At the time, it felt about 99% certain that the game was over, especially once the A’s brought in the invincible-looking Sean Doolittle to blow the Houston hitters away in the bottom of the 8th.

But before we get to the 9th, I should stress how impressive Jarred Cosart was in this game. The kid didn’t have pinpoint control, especially early on, and he got himself into some jams but he was incredibly poised and tenacious – ok, fine, fucking gritty – in getting out of them, inducing 3 double plays among several other key outs. He wound up stretching it out to 115 pitches to get through the 7th, striking out Astro-killah Coco Crisp in a lengthy at-bat with a man on 2nd to end that frame.

So in the 9th, facing Perfect Closer Grant Balfour, who looks like he’d sooner smash his whiskey bottle on the bar and stab you with it than allow you to reach base against him, the Astros staged their improbable comeback. Maxwell reached on an infield single, Balfour threw the ball away, allowing Maxwell to get to 2nd. That didn’t matter, though, when Dominguez homered – which, by the way, gave him a team-leading 50 RBI (fingers crossed, the Astros will wind up with at least one player with more than the 55 RBI that, embarrassingly, JD Martinez led the team with last year). After that, Krauss ripped a ball to the RF corner that was run down by the Hipster Hobo himself, Josh Reddick. Villar then lined a nice double the opposite way, giving him 3 hits and 2 doubles on the night. At this point, it actually…started to feel like the Astros were going to win. Balfour was clearly so pissed that he couldn’t see straight, Altuve was up, and it just seemed like something was going to happen.

Then, after he walked, Altuve almost did make something happen, something bad and really stupid. Representing a totally meaningless run, Jose bolted for 2nd when Balfour’s pitch to Castro bounced in the dirt, realizing too late that Villar was returning to 2nd. With Altuve hung up and an easy 2nd out in front of him, A’s catcher Derek Norris – who had entered the game as a defensive replacement – threw wild to Moss, who, honestly, made a lame effort to dig the ball out of the dirt; the ball trickled into short right field, and Moss’s throw home was not in time to get Villar, who stumbled into a head-first dive to score the winning walk-off run. In other words, it was the kind of play you expect to happen to the Astros, not for them. But we’ll take it, by the BBG’s, we’ll take it.