Pirates 4, Astros 3

by Mr. Happy

Tonight’s ball game reminded me a lot of part of the refrain from Frankie Valli’s solo hit My Eyes Adored You: so close so close and yet so far. This Astros team is very creative when it comes to figuring out a way to lose. They’ve actually gotten quite good at it. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I still watch the games. It’s sort of a sadistic view wondering where the loss is going to come from today.

Tonight, it was a passed ball that was really on the pitcher that helped send the woeful Astros down to their club record 12th consecutive loss, dropping their record to 34-68. Anytime you see a cross up on the signs, it’s the pitcher’s fault, almost every time. The catcher knows what he called. It’s the pitcher who has to interpret the signs. What’ll it be tomorrow? A balk? That’s why you have to watch the comedy of errors unfold. It’s quite fun.

The Astros had Wandy on the ropes several times but left him off with very little damage. Frankly, Wandy was not good today. He had no command whatsoever of his hammer, tossing 103 pitches in his six innings of work, walking five. Galarraga, God bless him, didn’t look that good either. How he racked up five punch outs in his five plus innings of work is beyond me, although most of the punch outs came from the freer swingers in their lineup, notably Marte, who has shown that he’ll swing at just about anything in his brief big league career, Barajas, Barmes and Alvarez. The strikeout of Pressley, who had homered off of him earlier, was a legitimate swing-and-miss strikeout.

I didn’t think that Galarraga’s slider looked that sharp, yet it was attracting some swings and misses, so what do I know? I didn’t have to face him. He did give up two long balls, both to left-handed hitters, as well as a triple, also to a left-handed hitter. Perhaps in Galarraga’s next start, he’ll look better, but I’m not hopeful. He is an Astro for a reason.

Chuckie Fick took tonight’s loss, welcoming him to the Astros party. Fick looked, well, like a pitcher who was recently exposed to the waiver wire, i.e., not that good. Fick has to keep the ball down in order to be successful, which he didn’t do that well today. Maybe next outing? Again, I’m not going to hold my breath. He too is an Astro for a reason.

We’ll end this one by looking at the bright side, which, admittedly is very hard to do when you’re mired in a 12 game losing streak that doesn’t get any easier tomorrow with McDonald on the bump, facing our “ace,” Harrell. The Astros were actually 2-9 tonight with runners in scoring position, and Maxwell got two RBIs on a two out triple, so he’s got that going for him. Two out RBIs have been few and far between this season, so you fucking celebrate them when they occur. Yahoo!!! See y’all tomorrow for more fun and frivolity! Everybody dance!

Pirates 6, Astros 5

by NeilT

Argh – A variant of arg, of which one usage is the interjection by pirates. It’s derived from English regional dialects adapted to portray Long John Silver by the actor Robert Newton, patron saint of Talk Like a Pirate, in the 1950s Walt Disney movie Treasure Island. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC_PR7YWQOc

Auugh. – a variant of usage of arg, which means to show frustration and dispair. Famously used by Charlie Brown, particularly in the context of baseball. http://www.amazon.com/AAUGH-Charlie-Brown-Peanuts-FRAMED/dp/B0053D2XW2

Pirates 5, Astros 3

by Mr. Happy

It was the worst of times; it was the worst of times. Last night’s game against the Pirates started off, well, rocky for young Dallas Keuchel when Starling Marte, leading off in his very first big league game, homered on the very first pitch that was thrown to him. I’m no stat hound, but I bet that is a first in big league history. The stat hounds in the FSH production truck found a guy back in 1922 who homered in his first big league ballgame while leading off the ballgame, but I don’t think that they even know whether it was on the first offering. I doubt that the statistics were that precise back then.

In any event, it’s already 1-0. After Walker flied out to Maxwell, Superman singles. Garrett Jones then lauches a two run jack to right field, and now it’s 3-0 with only one out, and apoplexy was brewing in the Game Zone. Keuchel would buckle down and retire the next two hitters to stop the barrage at 3-0. In the second inning, after walking Barajas to begin the inning, Barmes golfs one into the Crawford Boxes, and now it’s 5-0 with no outs in the top of the second inning. Cries of “uncle” could be heard from the partisan crowd of 16 brave souls who valiantly showed up for the game.

From here on though, Dallas Keuchel settled in and pitched pretty damn well, tossing in essence five straight scoreless frames before being removed for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the sixth inning. However, the Astros couldn’t scratch the tatted up wily old veteran A.J. Burnett, who threw seven innings of shutout ball. In the eighth inning, CJ led off with a chop shot into the Crawford Boxes, narrowing the gap to 5-1.

After Bogusevic grounded out to the right side for the umpteen thousandth time (even JD said that he was a league leader in ground balls), the surprise hitting Carlos Corporan took Burnett deep to right field, and now its 5-2. Hurdle has seen enough of Burnett, and he brings in Brad Lincoln who, after issuing a leadoff walk to Downsie and going 2-0 to Altuve, prompted a visit from pitching coach Ray Searage. Lincoln bore down and induced two ground ball outs to end the frame.

Fast forward to the bottom of the ninth, and it is still 5-2 as the bully tossed three scoreless frames in a row! The absolutely grotesque looking Joel Hanrahan is on to close it out. I figure that we’ve actually got a slim shot here because we touched him up for a blown save in Pittsburgh earlier this season. Maybe lightning would strike twice?

After retiring Maxwell on a bunt and nice play by Alvarez to nip the speedy Maxwell, the wild Hanrahan walks Moore. With JD at the dish, Hanrahan puts Barajas to some serious blocking work on a series of bounced heaters, one of which skipped far enough away to move Moore to second base. But JD strikes out. CJ then singles to left field, scoring Moore. Hanrahan uncorks another wild pitch in the dirt, and CJ takes second base. Was it going to happen again? Was Hanrahan imploding? However, Hanrahan had an ace up his sleeve, and it was the fact that he was facing Bogusevic, who obliged by striking out swinging to end the ball game.

The silver lining tonight? Do we have to? Okay. Despite allowing three home runs in a little over one inning, young Keuchel bowed his neck and threw five shutout frames. He even caught Superman looking once, striking out two in the ballgame, the other being Burnett. Keuchel doesn’t have “swing and miss” stuff. To the contrary. He has “swing and hit hard” stuff. The bully tossed three scoreless frames, which rarely happens these days. And the hitters scored three runs late to make it respectable and close enough to bring in the closer. In any event, it was the tenth loss in a row by the score of 5-3.

The record since the 22-23 start, you ask? A stellarly dreadful 12-43, since last night was the 100th game of the season. I heard somewhere but haven’t verified that the club is 2-25 in the last 27 games. However, that wouldn’t surprise me. Come on back to the Game Zone tonight to see what the fine discussion there is all about. It can be literary, with haiku poetry. Or a discussion of existential philosophy. Jeff Karstens goes tonight for the Buccos, and the Good Guys send Jordan Lyles to the sacrificial altar bump. The over-under on longballs tonight for young Lyles is two.

Mount a great comeback to almost win the game.

Reds 5, Astros 3

by Sphinx Drummond

The game started like any other game with the visiting team batting first. As with most games, last night was no difference, it started out as a pitching duel, and was a tightly contested game until the Reds were able to break it open big with a run in the third. With the Astros falling behind early it seemed a foregone conclusion that the Astros would suffer their ninth loss in a row. One could hardly expect this haphazardly assembled rag tag band of rascals, with questionable potential, to mount a come from behind victory.

Bud Norris pitched well, for a change, (he still has not won since May 21st) going seven innings and giving up one run while striking out seven before giving way to the irregulators. The Astros relief corps gave up another run in the 8th to dig the Astros’ hole even deeper, to a seemingly insurmountable depth.

Then in the bottom of the 8th the Astros bats came alive. They pounded the hell out of the Reds pitchers and proceeded to place three runs on the scoreboard next to all the zeros on the left of the Astros part of the board. The Astros were winning, it was 3 to 2 in favor of the good guys. It was amazing. That inning they made the Reds their little bitch. It was a great comeback and it was almost enough to win the game.

Francisco Cordero.

Contributed by Reuben

W: Leake (4-6)
L: Cordero (3-6)

Box

More tough luck for Lucas Harrell. More predictable slop from the rest of the Astros. Harrell was excellent, again, striking out 6 and giving up 1 run in 7 innings. On this night, though, we were distracted a bit from the game itself, as news started to come in over Twitter, starting around the 3rd inning, that Wandy might be in the process of being traded to the Pirates.

Twitter. That stupid invention that’s turned us all into junkies for instant resolution, instant news. I’m not even “on” twitter, yet I’m a junkie for it at times, for baseball stuff. But this time, somehow, twitter wasn’t fast enough, which meant looking away from the game, repeatedly checking the twitter feeds on the Chron’s Astros page, or checking mlbtraderumors (which gets all its breaking news from twitter, of course). Had Wandy really been traded? Well, that became apparent soon enough, when he started making the rounds in the dugout, hugging everyone goodbye. Well, if he has to go, what are we getting back? Long twitter silence. Nobody seemed to know (or care, perhaps). Come on, we need to know, Right Now, so we can instantly judge the trade, Right Now.

Anyway, eventually that essential info filtered out, at a 2008-ish pace, and we were all able to get back to the game, where the Astros, somewhat surprisingly, still had a 2-1 lead, courtesy of a Justin Maxwell line-drive Crawford Box job. Wilton Lopez pitched a scoreless 8th inning after the Astros had pinch-hit for Harrell (to no avail, of course, one of many wasted opportunities to pad their lead, of course).

Then twitter struck again. I was watching the game on my laptop, on the couch. Francisco Cordero had just given up a one-out groundball single and the next batter, Stubbs, was getting ready to walk up to the plate. The Chron’s twitter feed was scrolling, only partly obscured by the mlb.tv window on my screen, and what do I inadvertently see? “Astros down 3-2 after 2-run HR by Drew Stubbs in the 9th”. Thanks a whole fucking lot, twitter, you unwanted crystal ball! Seems my mlb.tv feed was a bit behind. So I had to watch the Stubbs AB, already knowing the horrible outcome, the only question which pitch the blow would come on. “Don’t do it, Cordero!” I shouted at the screen. “Walk him! Take the Delorean and go back in time and kill him when he’s just a baby!” Alas, he did neither, and foolishly still threw the 2-0 pitch down the heart of the plate. How can we blame Cordero, though? From his comments after the trade, he knows he sucks now, and is a shell of his former self. He was probably just as puzzled/worried as we were when he was named closer.

As you can imagine, that was the ballgame. It didn’t really matter if the Reds’ closer was a fellow who throws 102 or one who throws 85. These “hitters” weren’t likely to score two more runs off of anybody.

Dickities 8, Astros 3

by Mr. Happy

Having wasted all of my hyperbolic venom on Saturday’s recap, I’m forced to resort to discussing the cold hard facts about tonight’s game against the Dickities while filling in less than admirably for Budgirl. The story of tonight’s game begins – and ends – with the numbers.

The first number that stuck was the number 8, which is the number of runs that the Dickities scored. The second number was the number 3, which is the number of runs that the Astros scored. Other numbers are even relevant, you ask? Bear with me, I have a point to all of this, and I figure that if I write about tonight’s shitfest long enough, I’ll stumble upon it.

The next number that stands out is the number 5, which is the number of runs that the incompetent bully surrendered in but three innings of work. It’s also the number of alleged pitchers who trotted out there after Wandy. The Regulators? Even though Myers is gone, they can ditch that spot, consigning it and that insipidly stupid name to the depths of Hell. It’s more like the Irregulators.

The next number, you ask? The number, this time a percentage, .370, which was the Dickities batting average tonight, banging out 17 hits, which is another number that hits you like a ton of bricks. They came into tonight’s game hitting a very modest .251. The next two numbers that were blatantly obvious were 7-16 and 2-12, which is the RISP stat for the Dickities and Astros, respectively. As bad as the Astros pitching on the whole was and as well as the Dickities hit w/RISP, it’s a wonder that they didn’t score 18 runs. They had 15 LOBsters. Of course, the home nine had 13 of their own, leaving the bases loaded twice without scoring.

The next set of numbers that I’ll trouble you with are 2 (the number of errors that the Astros committed) and 34-63, which is our record now. Which brings me to my final number, which is 1. Nope, that’s not the number of folks in the stands at game’s end (but it is close). It is the number of the draft pick that we’ll no doubt secure next summer. I told you that I’d come across a point, and it is this. It’s going to be a long time before next year’s draft. As well as Luhnow, et al. seemed to do this year’s amateur draft, that’s the silver lining. You see, all’s well that ends well.