Giants 3, Astros 2

W: Cain (10-3) L: Norris (5-7)

The Giants didn’t need the additional weakening of the Astro lineup in order to sweep the series on Sunday, but it didn’t hurt. Lowrie and Castro both got shipped to the DL for a bit but our brave lads were still able to make a game of it, losing by only one run.

Brave and game though they were, this is still at best a decent AAA team groping to find its way. That way was not to be found today, as Matt Cain and friends held the punchless Good Guys to five hits and a walk.

The Astros actually had a couple of chances in this one, most notably in the seventh when they had runners on the corners with one out. Of course, two quick first-pitch outs made by pinch-hitters Bixler and Maxwell helped send the team to its 13th consecutive road loss.

The team appears to be in that familiar death swoon just like last year. A different twist to 2012 is the drumbeat in the local about Mills being replaced at the end of the season. It’s hard to not start to think that if the team doesn’t get a shot of cheap wins, then Mills may not survive early August, much less 2012.

“Sealed with a curse as sharp as a knife. Doomed is your soul and damned is your life.”

Join the team as they beg for redemption in San Diego and we follow each knee-slapping stroke of self-flagellation in the GZ.

by Austro and Mr. Happy

Lucas Harrell faced off against Tim Lincecum Saturday evening in a battle of underrated starter vs. inexplicably ineffective starter.

Lincecum had to be thanking his lucky stars that he drew the Astros coming out of the break. The Astros did their part by going 1-2-3 in the first inning without seeing very many pitches. However, Harrell came out and matched Lincecum with some nice pitching to get the first three Giants, showing some really good movement on his pitches.

In the top of the second JD and CJ sandwiched a pair of singles around a foul pop-up, but Maxwell and Snyder struck out to end the threat. In the bottom, Posey led off with one of the more remarkable singles I’ve seen: Harrell got the ball in on his hands, or what would have been in on the hands of a normal person, but Posey was able to pull his hands in and through while letting the barrel of the bat trail, so that the ball actually hit the meaty part of the bat. It banana’ed out to center field, slicing from left to right. That was followed by a walk to Sandoval, but Harrell bore down and got a line drive to left and two groundouts to end the inning without any damage.

In the top of the third, Harrell and Schafer struck out (imagine that) before Altuve blooped a single into center. He then got his sprint workout in as Lowrie kept fouling off pitches with Altuve on the move. Lowrie finally put one in play, and for a moment it looked like it might make the LCF gap, but Cabrera got a good jump and made a nice running catch to end that half of the inning. Lincecum led off the bottom of the inning by striking out, Harrell once again showing good movement on his pitches. I really don’t understand why the White Sox released this guy, because he can pitch. Blanco singled into left, followed by Theriot flying out to Schafer in RCF.

Then came the most significant play of the game, and maybe the season. Cabrera grounded sharply up the middle, and Altuve showed good range to get to the ball. He flung it sidearm back to second base as continued out toward LF, and Lowrie had to act like a first baseman to take the throw, stretching with his right foot on the back of the bag. Blanco slid in hard and spiked Lowrie on the ankle, causing it to pronate, which in turn twisted Lowrie’s knee in an odd way. Lowrie immediately scrambled out of there and collapsed and had to be removed from the game, assisted from the field by the training staff because he couldn’t put any weight on the leg. The first reports from the clubhouse were of a sprained ankle, but there’s speculation (including a Levine tweet) that there’s a more significant knee injury that they’re not talking about yet. Bixler replaced Lowrie, and Harrell jammed Posey to get a 5-3 groundout that kept the game scoreless.

The Astros went down meekly in the top of the fourth, JD on a foul pop-up to Posey, Moore striking out, and CJ nubbing a ball down the first base line for a 1U put-out. Sandoval led off the bottom of the inning by flying out to RF on a busted bat. Pagan followed with a strikeout. Sanchez singled up the middle, just beyond Altuve’s reach, and then Crawford hit a chopper up the middle that Harrell made a nice play on for the final out 1-3.

Over to my tag-team recap buddy, Mr. Happy, for the second half of the game…

Tim Lincecum pitched like the Good Tim Lincecum tonight, striking out 11 in eight frames. However, with a 2-0 lead in the top of the ninth, a very wobbly Santiago Casilla gave up a two out double to Justin Maxwell, scoring Scott Moore, who had walked. Snyder came up and struck out on a 1-2 hammer in the dirt, but it kicked away from tonight’s Giants hero Hector Sanchez, who threw wide to first base, allowing Snyder to reach. Meanwhile, Maxwell had the windmill going and scored from second base on the strikeout to knot the score at 2.

When the Giants could do nothing in the bottom of the ninth inning, I knew right then and there that our gooses were cooked because, well, free baseball and Astros mix like oil and water. It was just a matter of what inning we’d lose and which pitcher would be on the bump when it happened. We played two innings of scoreless baseball in the tenth and eleventh innings, in which the one and only FeRod didn’t lose and also tossed a scoreless frame, so it was on the twelfth inning. The Astros could do very little in the twelfth, wasting a two out knock from former Giant Matt Downs. This takes us to Brett Myers, who was on to pitch the bottom of the twelfth.

In the twelfth, Kung Fu Panda led off with an infield single to Brian Bixler. Pagan followed that with a single to center field, moving the Panda to second base. Hector Sanchez then hit a deuce on the button to Altuve, who deflected it into right field, scoring the Panda when Downsie’s desperation throw was well over Snyder’s head, preserving the Astros’ perfect 0-9 record in extras.

Bad news for Astros organization shortstops as both Jed Lowrie and Jonathan Villar went down, Lowrie with an ankle/knee (more details sure to follow) and Villar the brilliant with a self-inflicted broken hand from hitting a door. One thing seems clear: The club needs Marwin Gonzalez in a big bad sort of way, as Brian Bixler, God bless him, leaves a lot to be desired at shortstop.

It doesn’t get any easier tomorrow, as we face Matt Cain. Bud Norris takes the mound for the Astros. I smell a broom.

by NeilT

Astros 1
Giants 5

Whenever I think of the Giants, I can’t help but remember 2007, the Summer of Love. It was a special time, when all of us were San Franciscers, united in the overwhelming joy of watching Barry go for number 756.

I was always a fan of Barry and the Giants. “Cabezalito!” we’d yell and he’d turn and wave to the crowd, giddy with the love. And who didn’t love Barry, with his all-out style of left field play, his genuine warmth for the fans, his candor and friendliness with the press, the joy that seemed to flow to everyone around him?

Are you going to San Francisco?
You’d better wear some orange in your hair.
If you’re going to San Francisco,
You’re going to see the gentle Barry there.

2007. That song was on all our radios. The Summer of Love, and all of us felt the joy and peace because of Barry. He transcended sport to show us what we could be.

I went to a yoga class last night, then ate dinner at Triniti which was very good. It was a California kind of place, and they even had a Turley zinfandel on the wine list. I got home about 9 and turned on the game, but 10 is my bedtime. As I wondered off to read the top of the third ended with no runs, no hits, one man left on base. Our one run was a Snyder bomb in the 7th off of Bumgarner. Go ‘Stros.

Brewers 5, Astros 3, 10 innings

W: Parra (1-3)
L: Rodriguez (1-8)

Smells like a landfill of tires on fire, doesn’t it? Maybe those dozens at the ballpark are right after all. Maybe it isn’t frontrunning, maybe it’s the inability to keep watching the bright lights of shit on fire every night that drives them away.

I used to know a guy who worked press for TDCJ. The glamour part of his job was that he was one of the state’s witnesses to every execution, and then he got to talk to the press afterward. He’d get to answer those great questions like, “Did he seem to be in pain?” and “Did he struggle?” night after night after night. I don’t remember how many he saw, but it was in the multiple hundreds. Something like that changes a man, and he wasn’t immune. He took a few years off in West Texas, crawled inside a bottle and tried to kill his demons with a different fire.

Neither are we as fans, immune to the chemical burn that has been applied to this once heroic franchise. Yeah, they’re taking the right steps but God, we’re in a painful place right now, watching this shitty group of broken toys and cracked mirrors stumblefucking their way through another Season in Hell.

How long, O Lord, how long?

The papers have started to seize on Mills’ dismissal as an unannounced fait accompli. Fine, whatever. He was always armed like Barney Fife, and if you only give your bank dick one bullet, how’s he supposed to stop the robbery? Sure, we question his moves from time to time but he’s not Plato and this isn’t the Dawn of Reason going on here, this is a AAA team lurching around in hysteria like monkeys in an electrified cage. Mills could be Machiavelli and Midas in one and it wouldn’t make any difference with this smoking wreck.

It’s difficult to come to the conclusion that we’re in the petri dish stage, waiting to see if any of these cultures actually grow into something useful, and not some mutant half-players that can never be complete major leaguers. Marking time on a calendar is a trying experience and that’s where we seem to find ourselves, waiting out a slowly moving clock in the hopes that whatever the hell is in the oven actually turns out to be good. I’m not looking forward to another Thanksgiving of Hungry Man Dinners, even if they do come with that fruity goo for dessert.

Lyles was actually good today, maybe the best start he’s had. Through seven, he only gave up six hits and two runs. He found a way to battle out of two real tough situations, very similar to those that had doomed earlier starts this year.

Greinke went three as a surprise opener, and he wasn’t sharp at all. The Astros touched him for three before he gave way to Marco Estrada, et al. That group no-hit the home nine for six innings afterward, continuing a stretch of futility that has run for more than a month. The early season’s approach at the plate is gone now, deteriorating into something that resembles the cast from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

The bullpen, once pretty good, has also fallen into the same state of painful insanity. Three innings, four hits, three runs, five walks – it’s a wonder they can even pull off the act of suicide they do every night. It’s the only thing they can do correctly.

This is a shitty, shitty team. Yes, they’re young, but realistically they have nothing much to build on. Almost none of these players would even be reserves on any other team. The gap in talent between the Astros and other clubs is massive, and the only way that worm is going to turn is by letting the fucker die and then waiting for the rebirth. It isn’t going to be soon, and it isn’t going to be pretty, and I’m not in the position anymore where I feel the need to sell it any other way.

Think you like watching public executions? The true membership of that club is tiny and damned. Pull the curtain back and take a seat, but don’t say I didn’t warn you when the blood starts to splash back.