St. Louis 5, Houston 4

by Mr. Happy

In its final game in St. Louis as a National League team, this one a matinee that I missed altogether, the Astros lost again. The Astros’ record is 48-102 with 12 games to play, leaving open a reasonably good chance of losing 110 games. However, in one run ball games, the Astros are a quasi-respectable 16-26. Bud Norris lost again on the road, dropping his road record to an absolutely putrid 0-13 8.73, having allowed 18 long balls in only 66 innings of road work. Compared to his 3-1 1.90 home record, something just doesn’t make any sense.

Norris, winless since May, continued to have difficulty later in the ball game, and he failed to get out of the sixth inning. For the season, Norris has an ERA in the sixth inning and later (he hasn’t made it to the eighth inning in any of his 27 starts) of 6.83, compared to his season 5.05 ERA, lending credence to the argument from some that Norris belongs in the bullpen.

The bright spot today was the bullpen, which didn’t allow any runs in 2.2 innings of work, giving the bats a chance to win the ball game. However, the Cardinals’ bullpen struck out the last five Astros in succession to close it out and make a winner of Jaime Garcia, with Jason Motte securing his 38th save. The top of the Astros batting order, positions 1-4, collectively went 8-17, but the rest of the order didn’t do squat, going 2-18.

In Mr. Happy news, I made a speech in Denver on Thursday morning and flew back to Missoula that afternoon to go to the University of Montana President’s Dinner. I have to do these things today, but I don’t mind since the alternative sucks.

Astros 0, Cardinals 5

by Sphinx Drummond

Louis IX was king of France from 1226 until his death in 1270. He was only 12 years old when he assumed the throne. He was a fighting king and led a couple of crusades. It was during his second crusade that he died in Tunis–Muslim territory. As was the custom in such locales, his body was boiled until his flesh separated from his bones. A couple of his organs were buried on the spot in Tunis, as was the Christian tradition.

His heart was sealed in an urn and sent to Italy where his brother ruled, and his bones were shipped back to his homeland. His corpse bones, after a brief visit to Bologna, were taken to the French royal necropolis at Saint-Denis. He was canonized. In the 14 century, to store his bones, they built a magnificent monument/tomb all shiny and brassy which was melted down in the 15th century when they needed the resources to fight the Huguenots.

Along the way most of his remains turned up missing, in fact only one finger remains and is kept at Saint-Denis. I believe to be his middle finger of his right hand.

The Astros lost again on a Wednesday night, their best pitcher took the loss, they were shut out, they’re not very good, they’re moving to the AL. Anyway, I see an opportunity, I’m a gonna borrow crusty old Saint Louis’ bony finger just long enough to hold it up and say, Fuck You Bud.

Cardinals 4, Astros 1

Contributed by Reuben

100 is usually a good thing in sports; often a great thing. If you make a 100-yard carry in football, you’ve scored an amazing touchdown. If you’re score 100 points in basketball, you’re Wilt Chamberlain, you’re a fucking badass. In baseball, 100 is a great RBI man, a great leadoff man, a great fastball, a Rickey Henderson/Vince Coleman kind of speedster. Or a great season.

Until last year, the Astros had achieved all of the baseball-related feats above, save for the Rickey type, but never the negative one, their nadir having been 97 losses (in 1965, ’75, and ’91). But they blew past that, and are doing so again this year, reaching 100 again Tuesday night. We can take some small comfort, perhaps, knowing that only one team has been around longer than the Astros and never lost 100, the LA/CA/ANA Angels (file that as reason #2 in the Angels’ column of the Things To Hate About Our Future Division Rivals list). And HOU at least valiantly took 3 of 4 from the Phillies, delaying their shame until after the homestand. We’re still about a week or so away from seeing the 106-loss record broken.

In the meantime, we can focus on hoping that the Astros don’t three-peat next year, although it is probably as inevitable as a 14-3 pitcher on a playoff contender beating Fernando Abad and your 2012 Astros on a chilly Tuesday night in September.

Astros 7, Phillies 6

WP: Wright
LP: Bastardo

Down the street the dogs are barkin’
And the day is a-gettin’ dark
As the night comes in a-fallin’
The dogs’ll lose their bark
An’ the silent night will shatter
From the sounds inside my mind
For I’m one too many mornings
And a thousand miles behind

So now we’re done with Philadelphia. They aren’t going to miss us, not going to be upset because the Astros will be gone from the NL because Houston is 35-23 against them since 2004, 18-15 in the last five seasons of free fall.

It’s a little like a divorce with children. Even though she’s sent Wade packing, the Astros still carry the fruits of their union forward; in this case most notably in the form of Jonathan Singleton, one of the great hopes for the future.

Lyles started this one by giving up a double to Rollins, who scored after two sacrifices. Halladay didn’t have his best stuff by far, but then again he was facing the Astros, tonic for weakness all season long. He held them down until Moore took an outside fastball to the opposite field for a 2-1 lead.

Lyles pitched well through most of the fifth, striking out Martinez and Halladay to lead off that frame but then Rollins singled, stole second and went to third on a bad throw. Pierre doubled him in to tie, followed by an intentional walk to Utley so Lyles could face the lumbering and still somewhat off-balance Ryan Howard. Howard smacked an offering to the wall in left for a double though, scoring both runners before being thrown out trying to stretch it into a triple.

That 4-2 lead held up for another inning until Corporan crushed a splitter that didn’t break sharply off the facing in right. Halladay was clearly gassed by this point but he regrouped to get Greene looking.

Tony D pressed the only advantage he had by opening the floodgates, swamping the Phils with waves of substitutions, wearing them down in a battle of attrition and hoping for luck to roll his way.

From the crossroads of my doorstep
My eyes they start to fade
As I turn my head back to the room
Where my love and I have laid
An’ I gaze back to the street
The sidewalk and the sign
And I’m one too many mornings
An’ a thousand miles behind

It happened in the bottom of the seventh, when Manuel was manuvered into replacing Bastardo with Aumont, who has been nothing short of completely unreliable. Without retiring a batter, he gave up a bases-loading walk, then cleared them by serving up a double to Maxwell and a single to Dominguez, turning the score to 7-4 in favor of the Good Guys.

The waves continued, as Cedeno struck out Howard and then was replaced by Mickey Storey, whose 69-80 mph arsenal and shaky command plunked Ruiz and gave up a single to Mayberry and a double to Brown. Lopez was called upon and he nailed down the five-out save. The Phillies have all but shit the bed in this wheezing gasp of a bid for postseason glory, and they can take no solace in the knowledge that they beat themselves while facing the weakest team on their schedule.

It’s a restless hungry feeling
That don’t mean no one no good
When ev’rything I’m a-sayin’
You can say it just as good.
You’re right from your side
I’m right from mine
We’re both just one too many mornings
An’ a thousand miles behind

Philadelphia takes its spot in the rear view mirror now, and the Astros go on the road to St. Louis and their last visit to Missouri as Senior Loop denizens. Pull back the curtain in the Game Zone and follow along.

Astros 5 Phightin’ Phillies 0

by Mr. Happy

Well, I saw her today at the reception
A glass of wine in her hand
I knew she would go meet her connection
At her feet was her footloose man

Oh, you can’t always get what you want
Oh, you can’t always get what you want
Oh, you can’t always get what you want
Oh, you can’t always get what you want
Oh, you can’t always get what you want
Oh, you can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need

On a night in which he should definitely have gotten his ass down to the Powerball store to load up on tickets, one very lucky Dallas Keuchel scattered five hits and sprinkled in four walks (and throw in a hit batsman—whole lotta traffic) in his 5.1 innings and 95 pitches (48 strikes; 47 balls) of work, but, and this is a huge but, he allowed no runs for his second win of the season against seven losses. And he, a .111 hitter, got a hit and scored a run. How rare is that?

How did Keuchel and co. do it? Let’s go to your Powerball numbers. The number “13” was big tonight, for that was the number of ground ball outs Keuchel induced, versus only one fly ball out, and that one was in the first inning. The number “10” also was critical, for that was the number of unsuccessful at-bats the Phightins had tonight with runners in scoring position. The number “12” played a part, which was the number of LOBsters the Phillies had in the ball game. Lucky number “7” came up big tonight, for that was the number of runners in scoring position that the Phillies left on base (and also the number of wins the Astros already have in September, against seven losses-.500 baseball), including “3” left on the third sack.

The Astros scored all the runs that they would need tonight in the first inning, courtesy of a Justin Maxwell two run dong, his sixteenth of the season. As noted earlier, the number “10” was in the mix big time tonight, which was the number of base knocks that the Astros garnered. This leads us to your Powerball number, which is “5”, the number of runs the home nine scored. The normally un-clutch hitting Astros were 4-13 w/RISP tonight, and they scored four runs with two outs in the inning-this is a .212 hitting teams with two outs and runners in scoring position. But not tonight.

The Astros try again to avoid loss number 100 tomorrow as they go for a series win with Jordan Lyles taking the bump against Roy Halladay. The Game Zone was lively tonight, although I caught some flack for telling the truth about Dallas Keuchel. I can take it. We indeed got what we needed tonight-a win.

Phillies 12
Astros 6

by NeilT

I was 11 when I found my older brother’s porn stash in the hayloft. There was a John Deere tractor brochure, a 7R with an air-conditioned cab, and a couple of Philadelphia Phillies baseball cards, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley. I don’t know how he got that stuff, but every boy in Lancaster County knows who the Phillies are. It’s English, and it’s wrong, but there is something so exotic about baseball. It it’s modern, just like that big John Deere tractor. 

My parents were having trouble then. Father was busted for refusing to use the slow moving triangle on the back of the buggy. “English,” he said.  Mother’s jellies weren’t jelling. It was tough at home, and I grew up tough and a little bit wild, and that stash of porn made me wilder.

You grow up wild and Amish you sooner or later come to a bad end. At the barn raisings I’d be the tough guy, preening for the girls, reminding the other boys that the Philadelphia Phillies had finished with a .300 or worse season record 6 times, 1928, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942, and 1945. They were the first major league baseball team to reach 10,000 losses, in 2007. One day one of the other boys laughed and said, “oh yeah, what are you going to be, an Astros fan?” I didn’t know what that was, but I was a rebel, so I made it mine. I was an Astros fan. 

Things finally came to a head at home this year. I would go into town and hang out with English girls, drinking coke and eating French fries. There was this one night, last week, I was high on corn syrup and eating twinkies straight from the cellophane, blasted out of my mind and the next thing I know it’s 10 pm and I’m at the movies, holding hands with this girl named Tiffany, eating popcorn with this artificial butter on it. I was fried, man, and Tiffany was making a scene and the cops came. I got into it with the cops and next I know I’m busted for Amish in Possession of Artificial Sweeteners. When they finally dropped the charges, father told me no more. If I couldn’t be simple, I couldn’t be home. 

So yesterday I took off for Philadelphia and at Penn Station asked a cop where I could watch the Phillies play the Astros. “Hooters” he said. So I went to Hooters and ordered some chicken wings and a pop and watched my first major league baseball game.

I think I’ve had enough of the English life. I think I’m going home to Lancaster County.