Early and Often

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Athletics 10 Astros 1

Contributed by Mr. Happy

Little did we know it at the time, but this one was over in the top of the first frame, when Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods clubbed the first of his two long balls to give Oakland and Scott Kazmir (3-0) an early 2-0 lead that they would never relinquish. Poor Brett Oberholltzer (0-4) was pretty ordinary tonight, leaving too many pitches over the plate, and the A’s didn’t miss them. Alberto Callaspo also contributed a line drive home run as the Athletics garnered 14 knocks in the game. As bad as it was, it could have been worse—the Athletics were 3-14 w/RISP and had 11 LOBsters. The Astros made five, count ‘em, five fucking errors. Sheesh. Pick up that damn ball for crying out loud.

Oberholtzer didn’t get out of the fourth frame, surrendering six earnies and two free passes. Paul Clemens relieved Oberholzer and pitched rather ineffectively until the home plate umpire, Toby Basner, ran him for dotting former Astro Jed Lowrie in what appeared to be a hangover from last week’s shenanigans. If Clemens gets fined, I’d demand that Porter pay it, because I’m convinced that Porter gave that order. On the bright side, if there is one in a 10-1 ass kicking, punching bag Jerome Williams, whose lifetime BAA against the Athletics was around .370 in over 100 ABs, pitched two scoreless and hitless frames to bring his ERA down under 6, so he’s got that going for him.

Despite only putting one run, the Astros had ten hits. Jose Altuve led the way with three hits, while Matt Dominguez and Jonathan Villar contributed two hits apiece. Situational hitting was a bug-a-boo again because the club was 1-10 w/RISP and had 11 LOBsters. Saddle up sports fans, we’ve got the A’s again tonight, with Brad Peacock taking the hill against Jesse Chavez in another rematch from last week. Let’s pray that this one goes better than the rematch last night.

SEA GRRRRRRRRR…

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Astros’ lose 5-3 after Kyle Seager’s walk off 3 run homer

WP: Fernando Rodney (1-1)
LP: Josh Fields (0-1)

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

For a brief moment it looked like the Astros might get their first series sweep of the year. Josh Fields came on in the ninth with a 3-2 lead and gave up hits to Robinson Cano and Corey Hart, putting a man on first and second before getting Justin Smoak to strike out. That’s when Kyle Seagrrr hit his second homer of the game.

Jared Cosart pitched well, bouncing back from his horrid last start. He took a shutout into the seventh after failing to make it out of the first inning in his previous start. The Astros got a two-run double from Jason Castro in the third inning and Chris Carter hit his second homer of the series in the seventh to take a 3-0 lead.

Seagrrrrr, who entered the day hitting .156 with just two RBIs on the season, hit his first homer of the game, a two run shot in the bottom of the seventh to make the score 3-2, Astros. Fucker.

The Astros return home Thursday to face the Oakland A’s and Scott Kazmir (2-0, 1.65 ERA). The Astros will counter with Brett Oberholtzer (0-3, 3.04 ERA) who is ready for a win.

Game Time: 2:50.
Weather: 53 degrees, Cloudy.
Wind: 2 mph, In From Left.
Attendance: 13,739.

Athletics @ Astros Series Preview

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Ebby Calvin in Featured, Series Previews

Jack and Lily landed in Lihue with little in their pockets and nothing on the schedule. No jobs lined up, no place to stay, no black-tie driver holding a placard with “Wandering College Graduates” scrawled upon it. Just a young couple with hopes and dreams and other applicable Neil Diamond lyrics. They figured they’d figure it out when they figured it out.

Johnny and Kim knew they were coming, sure, but the latest correspondence between the two parties went something like this:

“Hey you should come visit this summer!”

“Sounds great!”

The $300 cash they shared was tucked away in various zippered- and buttoned-pockets on each of their persons. Jack hid five tens in Lily’s backpack and vice versa, each bill leading to the next; the last traces of their net worth spread about like cookie crumbs. The last tenner slept soundly at the bottom of Jack’s sack, folded intricately inside a road map of Oakland they’ll never use again with a note that read ARE YOU REALLY SURE? The rest they kept in a red canvas O’Neill wallet (velcro).

First order of business: find a cheap beater and track down Johnny and Kim. Second order of business: find jobs.

Bedrolls affixed to backpacks, surfboards tucked under arms and a hastily-rolled pinner burning quickly between them, Jack and Lily walked into their new life.

Half an hour later the sprawl of Oakland lay open in a Wal-Mart parking lot.

***

Athletics @ Astros Series Preview

Probable Starters

I find this strange: I have zero idea what Oberholtzer, Peacock or Keuchel look like. None. If you stood the three of them in front of me and slapped a jersey on each of their backs, I’d definitely get two names wrong. And while I’m at it, let’s work out that whole tv deal guys, ok? Just end this, please.

Thursday, Apr 24, 7pm, MMPUS

Scott Kazmir (2-0, 1.65) vs Brett Oberholtzer (0-3, 3.04)

Friday, Apr 25, 7pm, MMPUS

Jesse Chavez (1-0, 1.38) vs Brad Peacock (0-2, 6.14)

Saturday, Apr 26, 6pm, MMPUS

Dan Straily (1-1, 5.40) vs Dallas Keuchel (2-1, 3.38)

Sunday, Apr 27, 1pm, MMPUS

Tommy Milone (01, 4.24) vs TBD

***

The 1983 Buick Park Avenue was drivable, but that’s fairly generous. The driver’s-side door fought at its hinges above 25mph and the front hood stood at attention once you hit 40. There were no floorboards. Fred and Wilma and Barney and Betty could drive this thing and feel right at home, save for the sparkly-blue paint job (spill?) that coated every exposed inch of metal, chrome or rubber. The tape deck looped endlessly with a compilation of Essential Waltzes that was apparently welded in the feeder slot. The volume knob decided long ago that it, and only it, would crank it up or bring it down when it damn well pleased. Waltzes can be tricky.

The whole package cost exactly $250, and the beast’s previous owner, a local who just needed the cash, threw a few rolls of duct tape in the back seat out of either thanks or pity.

They drove north.

***

Uncle Johnny floated in and out of restaurants, trading his culinary degree for a bag of pot when he needed it. He owned exactly two pairs of shoes: blue rubber flip-flops and the brown leather flip-flops he wore at his wedding. Aunt Kim was a local who ran a highly-regarded real estate business with her mother, which is a very, very, very good thing to own in a place like Kauai. They had a happy marriage and happy daughters and a handful of chickens out back. And I can’t give you a single reason why they shouldn’t have all three.

Their two-story wooden house (which Kim secured for a steal) sat on its own bluff, where from the second story porch the Pacific stretched to the end of the earth. Humpbacks mated there in the spring.

***

Promotions

Thursday – $1 Hot dogs

Friday – Astros Golf Umbrella; fireworks

Saturday – Jason Castro All-Star bobblehead

Sunday – Dog day!

***

Hanalei, according to Google, translates syllable-for-word into “the most beautiful fucking place on earth.”

Johnny picked us up in a rusty green Toyota Tacoma and I voluntarily jumped in the truck bed for the hour drive up the Eastern shore. I grabbed leaves and berries when the road got slow, traced Red-Crested Cardinals’ paths from limb to limb. Gazed at the ocean. Saw a lot of goats.

I could hear my parents’ animated conversations muffled through the back window. The backseat window slid open as my dad mouthed to me: Jack and Lily never showed up. Johnny and Kim didn’t know they were here. They landed five months ago. My cousin was missing.

***

There had been no contact. Email was still a relatively new phenomenon and therefore completely unreliable as a means of communication. They had no phone number and didn’t write letters. Aside from the airline’s confirmation that yes, Jack and Lily were on the plane to Lihue, they left no trace.

We called the police, called their friends, called hospitals – all dead ends. Johnny and I spent each of the next three days combing highways and back roads, polling local businesses, flashing pictures in restaurants. Lily’s mother flew up.

The fourth day we found them. Johnny and I had been jolting and jerking our way through the thick of the jungle along a long-forgotten dirt road when I caught a flash in my periphery. A white-hot, neon-blue flash that glimmered in the sun. Almost…sparkly. A closer look revealed a very old, very blue and very broken Buick Park Avenue, tucked neatly under drooping ferns. Two surfboards duct-taped to the roof. Johnny stopped the truck.

***

Injuries

Athletics

Jacob Elmore – spotted leopard crotch flu

AJ Griffin – striped bass anal fissures

Eric O’Flaherty – miniature Chihuahua tooth ache

Jarrod Parker – bearded lizard beard lice

Fernando Rodriguez – strep

Astros

Jesse Crain – recovering from biceps surgery, due early May

Scott Feldman – bicep tendinitis, due early May

Alex White

Asher Wojciechowski – lat strain, no timetable for return

***

I recognized Jack’s surfboard immediately and hesitantly poked my head in the window. No signs of life, but the car was clearly dead. For some reason the floorboards were missing. The nearby banana and avocado trees seemed to have mistaken it for a nursery.

Johnny ventured into the jungle, eyes trained at the ground. Then, “Ow! MotherFUCKER!”

I ran to his side, then I felt it – like a paintball in the middle of the back from three feet away. “MotherFUCKER!”

We looked up together as Jack lobbed another avocado at us from twenty feet in the air.

“Heads up!”

***

They never made it to Johnny and Kim’s because they just never got around to it. They got lost on the way to Johnny’s that first day and the Buick died in a puddle that was deeper than it looked. Why they took the worst possible route to find the house was completely beyond their understanding or explanation.

Jack found a job cleaning old lighthouses while Lily taught dance to 4-year-old girls in town. Both jobs paid cash. Food was picked from the trees and the farmer’s market. The Buick became their pantry. And Lily was pregnant.

When asked what their plans were for the baby and why the FUCK they didn’t tell anybody what they were doing, Jack said, simply, “we figured we’d figure it out when we figured it out.”

They still live there, 14 years later. In a house. With a Buick.

It’s All Porter’s Fault

Posted on April 22, 2014 by BudGirl in Featured, Game Recaps, News

Astros 7, [ugh] Mariners2
W: Keuchel L: King Felix Hernandez
box score

Well, the question about Porter and his managing started early in this one. He had Dominguez DH’ing and Gonzalez playing 3B. I have questioned it before and I rather did last night again. But, Porter pulled the win out of the jaws of loss. Porter and the Astros also got some hits, some of them went quite far, especially those by Dominguez and Krauss. Somehow or other Porter caused the other team to make 2 errors. When Porter puts all his effort into a game, there’s no stopping him. His efforts also had Keuchel going 6 innings. But Qualls, Albers and Fields were also able to pitch an inning each of scoreless baseball.

Seriously, I don’t know how Porter was able to do it, but he did. He didn’t give the [ugh] Mariners a chance to get in the game. He only gave them 7 hits and 1 (yes only 1) walk through 9 innings.

Well congratulations to Porter, it was a well-deserved win.

Here’s the GameZone for some details.

Astros @ Mariners Series Preview

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Ebby Calvin in Featured, Series Previews

Pigfucker

My 4-year-old son told me yesterday about a great movie he watched with his (maternal) grandparents. He couldn’t remember the movie’s title other than it was “not Frozen,” which is about all that matters in our household these days, but he remembered the ending in detail.

Apparently the protagonist bell cow was on some sort of coming-of-age journey that resulted in his saving the farm from coyotes or something and becoming the man (cow) his father always wanted him to be. Which is great – do what your daddy tells you.

Then the boy (cow) got the girl (pig), had a baby (dog), and lived happily ever after.

Really, television? A cow fucks a pig and produces a dog? That’s happily ever after? Are you fucking kidding me?

Look, television, I ask only three things of you: 1) show me live sports, 2) sedate my wife with TLC/HGN and 3) babysit my children. I already can’t watch live sports on you, but at least I can drink in the garage while you’re doing 2) and 3).

Now I can’t even trust you to do that.

Probable Starters

Monday 9pm SafeCo

Keuchel (1-1) vs Felix (3-0)

Tuesday 9pm SafeCo

Feldman (2-1) vs Orgasmo Ramirez (2-1)

Wednesday 1:40pm SafeCo

Cosart (1-2) vs Chris Young (0-0)

Promotions

Monday – nothing

Tuesday – nothing

Wednesday – Mariners Beard Cap (first 20,000), which will serve more as a Beard Warmer for all of the dirty hippies up there.

Injuries

Astros

Crain – Biceps, due back in May

Presley – Flu (day-to-day)

White

Wjciechowski – right lat, no timetable for return

Mariners

Beavan – Cataplexy

Iwakuma – Triskaidekaphobia

Morrison – Arachibutyrophobia

Paxton – Tanorexia

Walker – Pica

Predictions

Astros get 2 hits Monday

Astros have a Beard Hat night at some point this year

I will write a better preview at some point this year

Astros lose the series 1-2

Easter

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Ron Brand in Featured, Game Recaps

Oakland 4, Houston 1

W: Chavez (1-0)
L: Peacock (0-2)

Submitted by Reuben

The Astros suffered their 7th loss in a row today, on Easter Sunday. Last year on Easter, they beat the Rangers 8-2 in the first game of the baseball season, and their first as a godforsaken American League team. It’s basically been all downhill since then.

We had a little family gathering today, at my Aunt and Uncle’s house in North Carolina. My mom and dad, divorced for 20 years now, were both there; my cousins, family friends, various people that I hadn’t ever met or hadn’t seen in 10 or 20 or more years were there, too.

And presiding over it all was my Aunt Meta. I hadn’t seen Meta since Christmas. In January they discovered that her cancer had metastasized. She’s been undergoing pretty intense chemotherapy since then. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect (we had been warned beforehand that everyone would need to be gone by 6pm so she could rest), but she was absolutely the same as always – vivacious, funny, incredibly warm, incredibly happy to see you, and it was not an act in any way – there is no bullshit with Aunt Meta. She speaks her mind, always, and I’ve never thought she was putting on a front of any kind.

In short, she is the kind of aunt anyone with any sense at all would want to have. To see her like that, completely herself, embracing everyone, talking just as loudly as ever, not looking weak or out of it at all, talking about the trip to Italy they’re going to take this fall, stubbornly insisting that we take some food home with us, man, it was the best feeling.

Happy Easter, everyone.
***

Here’s the Gamezone thread, and here’s the box score, for anyone interested in actual information about the game.

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