Indians 5, Astros 4

W: Allen (1-0)
L: Ambriz (0-1)

It’s a lot like going to McDonalds. It’s never going to be that first choice for a meal, it’s either some distant sense memory, some flavor you think you remember or else it’s the last option left to you.

The terrible reality sets in once you take a bite. The fries taste like salty cardboard and if you’re lucky, the Quarter Pounder is mostly a squishy ketchup-mustard flavored mass. Perhaps it’s warm, but those are the high points in the deal. When you’re down to telling yourself that maybe half those fries tasted something like fries, and that hamburger was actually above room temperature for a change, you’re in Houston Astro territory.

That oily film coating your mouth is 5-12 in focus. It’s looking down the line of batting averages and seeing .215, .226, .226, .236, .229, .230 among the regulars.

Porter’s doing a pretty good job. He’s flailing at the controls but not losing his mind in a Cooperish frenzy. He’s upbeat, positive and intelligent, mixing and matching what he’s got as well as he can, but when your best culinary tool is a heat lamp, you’re probably not going to impress Padma at the Quickfire.

FeMart came back from the DL with a lot to prove, and he yanked the first pitch he saw for a 2-0 lead. Bedard gave one back to Yan Gomes, and then another run in the third. Despite eight strikeouts through four innings, Bedard was replaced by Long Lefty du Jour Obie Oberholtzer, who surrendered two runs in two innings, mostly by being too fat over the plate in tight situations.

Houston tied it up in the sixth. Ambriz came on for the seventh and got two quick outs via a hard-breaking yellowhammer, but fleeting success with a high slider led him to try that pitch one too many times. Reynolds slashed a letter-high slider over the line for the gamewinner.

The Astros had two more chances to win this one. In the bottom of the seventh with two on, Gonzalez inexplicably bunted foul for strike three and Carter took a fat fastball over the middle of the plate to end the frame. In the ninth, Houston had the bases loaded with one out but Carter was again overmatched, swinging over a low slider to fan before Castro’s hard grounder was fielded to end the game.

At McDonald’s, the only surprises are the good ones, when your food is not quite as awful as you know it’s going to be. In Houston, so far this season, there are no surprises.

contributed by Mr. Happy

My head hurts, my feet stink, and I don’t love jesus (oh my lordy it’s that…)
It’s that kind of mornin’
Really was that kind of night
Tryin’ to tell myself that my condition is improvin’
And if I don’t die by Thursday
I’ll be roarin’ friday night
Went down to the snake pit
To drink a little beer
Listen to the jukebox
Merle was comin’ in clear
All of a sudden I wad’n alone
Pickin’ country music with ol’ joe bones
Duval street was rockin’
My eyes they starting poppin’
Because there she sat at the corner of the bar
As I broke another string on my ol’ guitar
Someone call a cab
Lady won’tcha pay my tab

Never mind tonight’s game. In short, we got blown out 19-6, as the Tribe banged out 22 hits in thrashing the Home Nine. Philip Humber brought his best BP stuff tonight, throwing 30 pitches in his brief .1 inning outing, nine of which were put in play. Of those nine balls in play, eight fell in for hits, four for doubles and one left the yard. Eight earnies. Eight fucking earnies. At the end of two innings, the Astros were down by two touchdowns, and the rout continued, as the Tribe piled on five more runs to seal the win.

Early on, Astros futility records for both runs allowed (22 to the FTC back on June 3, 1987) and hits allowed (26 against the Dickities on August 3, 1989) looked in danger of falling. However, Paul Clemens came in and shut the Indians down on one hit in 3.1 frames, following rather pedestrian outings by the bully after Humber failed to get out of the first inning.

Scott Kazmir was the beneficiary of all of those runs and couldn’t get out of the fourth inning, but the Tribe bully combined to throw 5.2 scoreless frames, notching six punch outs en route to the win. Nick Swisher is a fine hitter but is a showoff prick who I love to pull against on general principle. If he caught a little chin music tomorrow, it wouldn’t break my heart.

Astrals 3
Subcontinentals 2

contributed by NeilT

People ask me, what was it like? Growing up in Cleveland? Cleveland, city of mystery, exotic, extravagant, elegant, eclectic, it is the city of a billion faces and experiences, Cleveland! And of course there are the Subcontinentals, the baseball representatives of our City, with the stylized picture of the Father of our City, Gandhi, on their caps. The Subcontinentals are the reincarnated souls from a dozen other teams, including the third base coach, Brad Mills, and tonight’s starting pitcher, Brett Myers, both of whom in former lives were Houston Astrals.

Going into a stadium where the Subcontinentals are playing is a special experience. There is the bustle of the street market, the smells of humans and spice and something indefinable, something not always pleasant but always rich and exciting, a challenge to the senses. I bought a chai and a couple of lamb somosas and a plate of the goat byriani and pushed my way through the crowd in time for the opening raga..

It is a divided stadium, as is our City, with Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, Catholics. Did you know there is a special vendor for the Jains, who are fruitatarians? These Houston Astrals talk of their diversity, but we ClevelandIndians are a very ancient diversity. Cleveland, city of mystery! City of a million faces! But the material world is often a harsh reality. In the third, J.D. Martinez hit a two run homer after Pena walked. Ankiel, who today’s Houston Chronicle described as “Hit or Miss”, followed with a second home run to make it 3-0, Astrals. Ankiel is on track to hit .194 with 100 RBI, 40 home runs, and 200 strike outs.

It was the Astrals only scores of the evening. Fortunately, the Cleveland fans restored harmony and balance by beginning chants. I joined in with ommmmm, ommmmm, but the Krishnas sitting next to me, all of whom were resplendent in saffron, began to chant the names of Lord Krishna, “Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare . . . “, and play those damn finger cymbals. I hate those finger cymbals. There’s no place for finger cymbals in baseball.

Myers, whose former-life Karma must not have been very good, did manage to shut the Astrals down. J.D. Martinez may have injured his knee on a checked swing in the bottom of the fourth, but Brandon Barnes hit a pinch hit single. Altuve had a lead-off single and a steal in the 5th. Maxwell walked in the 8th. That was the offense.

In the fourth, amidst clouds of incense, the most holy sadhu, Lonnie Chisenhall, homered to right, driving in Mark Reynolds. Ommmm. Ommmm.

In the 7th inning stretch, we went through three yoga positions, dandayamana-dhanrasana (the standing bow pulling pose), dandayamana-bibhaktapada-paschimotthanasana (the standing separate leg-stretching pose), and trikanasana (triangle pose), and sang this classic raga.

Wesley Wright replaced Harrell with two outs in the 6th, after Reynolds singled for the Subcontinentals. Sadhu Chisenhall grounded out to end the inning. Wright allowed a single in the 7th, and was replaced by Armbriz in the 8th. Armbriz allowed the reincarnation of a former Yankee, Nick Swisher, to double in the 8th, followed by a Santana swim in the holy River Ganges. The inning ended with a nice 1-4-3 double play. Veras got his first save in the 9th, allowing a Drew Stubbs single. Harrell got his first win.

Namaste.

A’s sweep Astros again.

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

Yesterday, as I was working there was a game being played between the Astros and the A’s. I missed it but here are a few things I found out about it:

Jed Lowrie’s new club has the best record in in the AL, his old club has the worst record in the AL. The Astros are on a pace to lose 116 games. Jed Lowrie must be a happy man to be on a contending team after spending last year on the worst team in the majors. In the entire history of MLB the Astros have only beaten the A’s once in twelve times. A’s general manager Bill Beane must be some kind of a genius or something.

Poor old Bud Norris dropped to 2 – 2 while getting hammered for 6 runs before getting pulled in the first inning. Meanwhile, the chemically enhanced Bartolo Colon: raised his record to 2 – 0, scattering 4 hits and 1 run over his 6 innings of work in picking up the win.

The Astros tried to make a late comeback but it was not enough. Altuve raised his batting average to .365 after going 3 for 5 with a run and a RBI. Not much else to be said about the Astros.

I could rant about how Bud “Ugly” Selig is a corrupt miscreant and Jim Crane is his personal butt wiper but that would be like ranting about water being wet. So I’ll save that for later.

A’s 4, Astros 3

Contributed by Reuben

Since the Astros and A’s are both on the AL West now, it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing plenty of Oakland reliever Sean Doolittle, so I won’t make this recap a lengthy string of references to the Pixies album of the same name – although it is a damn fine album and a very funny name for a modern-day baseball player. I’m sure there will be other, more relevant opportunities for that in the future.

This was a pretty good game, considering the Astros lost. Brad Peacock flashed a lot of promise- mixing a consistent 93-mph fastball that seemed to jump at hitters with a great curveball. Over the first four innings, he allowed just 2 hits and struck out 6. The A’s did manage to scrape together a run in the 4th when Peacock had some serious trouble preventing baserunners from taking extreme liberties right under his nose.

But the 5th is when it really started to fall apart. Peacock struck out the 1st batter, then gave up a double to Chris Sabo tribute player Alex Sogard (who had already tripled in the game). The next batter, the suddenly-playing-like-Ty-Cobb-reincarnated Coco Crisp, hit a ball to the right-center gap that Rick Ankiel had some major indecision on… it looked like he might have been able to catch it, but at the last second he seemed to decide to play the carom, then sort of slapped at the ball with his bare hand as it hit off the fence… at any rate, not one of his finer defensive moments, and the result was an RBI triple for Cobb, er Crisp. After a walk to the next batter, Peacock was lifted for Dallas Keuchel, who gave up an RBI single to Seth Smith, he of the lifetime .205/.277/.332 mark vs. lefties. That gave the A’s a 3-2 lead. The next play looked like it would extend the lead, but Matt Dominguez made yet another unbelievable play, scooping a grounder near the 3rd base line and making a terrific throw to Castro to nail the runner coming in from 3rd. As Ashby and Blum noted, the vast majority of 3Bmen would have just taken the sure/easy out at 1st and allowed the run to score. But Dominguez went after it with no hesitation, but no wildness either, just an outstanding play to shut down a rally and keep the deficit at 1.

That was almost enough, too, as Keuchel kept the A’s in check for the next 2+ innings, and Carlos Pena hit an opposite-field HR off the lefty, Doolittle, to tie it up in the 8th. As Blum had pointed out earlier, the Astros were one of just 3 teams in MLB to not have a come-from-behind victory of any kind this season. After Pena’s unlikely shot, it seemed like perhaps this would be the night. Finally, here was some exciting baseball, a tight game, lots of tense at-bats and great clutch plays in the field. I didn’t even fall asleep, despite it creeping quickly towards 1am my time.

Porter brought in Rhiner Cruz with 1 out in the 8th. “Just throw strikes, Rhiner” I thought (perhaps out loud). He did, mostly, pumping a bunch of 95-97mph fastballs at the A’s hitters. Unfortunately, that annoying hobo-hipster-athlete, Josh Reddick, worked a walk, and with two outs, was running on the full-count pitch when A’s 3B Josh Donaldson lofted an outside fastball down the RF line. Rick Ankiel… tried, but came up empty on a do-or-die dive. He probably wouldn’t have been able to keep Reddick from scoring even if he had played it safe, but he scored easily on what wound up as yet another triple.

The Astro hitters went quietly in the 9th against A’s closer Grant Balfour, and the result was their 2nd 4-game losing streak of the young season. One can only hope that when this team does find some consistency, it will closer to “consistently good” than “consistently awful”.

Other thoughts:
-JD Martinez has looked terrible on most of his at-bats that I’ve had the chance to see lately. The Astros are essentially choosing to play him rather than Wallace right now, which is strange to me. Wallace clearly, if he’s ever going to hit, needs ABs against major-league pitching. JD clearly is in need of more time at AAA to figure out his swing.

-I didn’t get to see it, because mlb.tv was having technical issues early on, but Ankiel apparently hit a sharp line drive with the bases loaded and two outs in the 3rd inning, but right at the 1st baseman. Probably would have been the difference in the game had it gone through.

-Chris Carter is only 1-for-8 in the last 3 games, but he did not strike out last night, for probably the 1st time this year, and he’s now hitting .264/.339/.528, which is not bad at all. He seems to be putting together much better at-bats now, even when he’s not hitting bombs.

Got bombed, got frozen
Got finally off to a finally dozing…