Astros win 8-3, take 2 of 3 in series with Marines

W: B. Peacock (1-1)
L: B. Beavan (0-1)

HR: HOU – R. Ankiel (2), C. Carter (3), M. Gonzalez (2) SEA – K. Shoppach (1), F. Gutierrez (3)

contributed by Sphinx Drummond

There is no proper way to watch the Astros in Austin and the radio feed is absent more than present. It makes it hard to be an Astro fan, you have to make quite an effort to follow this team in it’s own time zone, add two time zones and it takes twice as much effort (or maybe three times as much). One thing that eases the burden is winning. The Astros brought their lumber along for the second night in a row and pounded out 16 hits in route to an 8 – 3 victory over the Seattle sponge gums.

Chris Carter has finally started swinging his hitting stick with authority, hitting his second home in as many nights, adding two more hits and total of 2 RBIs and 2 runs scored. Carlos Pena has started hitting too, getting three hits on the night. Marwin Gonzales hit his second homer of the year, hell even Rick Ankiel got into the action with his second home run of the season–also just his second hit of the year. Brett Wallace didn’t play.

Brad Peacock held tough for 5 innings, giving up 3 runs in picking up his first win as an Astro. Kuechel, Cruz, and Veras were lockdown in relief, surrendering nothing. This team has looked good in the three games it has won. Real good. Right now the team is still looking pretty bad overall and is on pace to end up 54 and 108, but who knows, it’s a long season and the team is more likely to improve than regress as the season progresses. When you’re in the basement, the elevator only goes up.

Astros 16, Mariners 9

W: Clemens (1-0)
L: Maurer (0-2)

Contributed by Reuben

Since Tuesday’s Astros game didn’t start until 10:10pm, my time, and my wife is fighting a cold, I decided to just watch the game in bed. I often don’t go to sleep until 12 or later anyway, but evidently I was more tired than I thought, because I don’t even really remember the 1st inning, much less the rest of the game.… I’m guessing the Astros didn’t get a hit until the 6th or 7th, and probably kept it close for a while – maybe they were only down 2-0 until Seattle scored 5 in the 6th, effectively ending the game. But that’s nothing new, and therefore not even worth looking up; I’m sure everyone’s sick of reading about the last loss. So instead I’ll tell you about this crazy dream I had.

Last night I had the strangest dream
I’ve ever had before.
I dreamed the Astros all agreed
to score and score and score.

In my dream – I think it was Wednesday morning, 3 AM when I was having this dream – the Astros didn’t just strike out again and again, and struggle to even get the ball out of the infield, and they didn’t make a lot of stupid mistakes on defense or on the bases. They didn’t wait until the 2nd half of the game to put any runs on the board… nope, they just came right out of the gate, swinging the big bats. Altuve led off with a hit, ok, fine, but then it really started getting weird: Maxwell got a hit, Castro (who, oddly, was batting third in my dream) got a hit, then Carlos Pena not only didn’t strike out, he actually almost hit a grand slam, settling for a 2-run double, and then it all kind of muddles together, the way dreams do – they just kept on scoring. JD Martinez hit a HR, Carter had two HR and four hits! Even Marwin hit a HR! Like I said: a really bizarre dream.

Funnily enough, every Brett Wallace AB in my dream was like a recurring nightmare; he just kept striking out over and over. But the rest of the team, it was like the balls were metal, and they had magnets in the barrels of their bats. JD Martinez had a crazy RBI single on a slider that broke way down and away; his bat somehow just went right to where the ball was going and hit a line drive into left field. Also, I must’ve been thinking too much about the tandem starters thing Luhnow’s doing with the minor league pitchers, because in my dream the Astros had two SP each throw 4 innings.

And the people in the visitor’s clubhouse
Were dancing round and round
And bats and gloves and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground

Read commentary on the actual game in the GameZone thread. I’m sure they made it entertaining despite having to endure another pitiful loss full of strikeouts and goose eggs.

(Alternatively titled: “You know your team is having a rough time when ever Mariners fans feel a need to mock you…”)

April 8, 2013

Seattle 3, Houston 0 (Box Score; Gamezone)

W: J. Saunders (1-1)

L: P. Humber (0-1)

S: T. Wilhelmsen (3)

There is something about Opening Day Baseball.  This holds true even if it is not really Opening Day (in fact a week after actual Opening Day, which is not really Opening Day anymore as W. Huber has decreed from upon high that there will be an official Opening Day game before Opening Day, but alas I digress), rather the home opener, and the opposing team’s home opener to boot.  Still, for the first time since the eternity of the most recent Void, baseball had found its way back to the Pacific Northwest.  Not only was baseball back in the Northwest, but the Astros were heading back to the Northwest for the first time since June 7-9, 2004 when the Astros took two of three from the Mariners.  I’d had the opportunity to attend game two of the series – it is was phenomenal.  Though the Astros were held to three hits on the night, a MoBerg sac-fly in the top of the seventh inning sent Bags home for the Astros only run of the night, which proved enough as Clemens-Lidge-Dotel managed to hold the Mariners scoreless. It was, to say, memorable for me as it was the first time I’d seen the Astros in person since I’d left the Houston area in late 1993/early 1994.

For me, however, the game last night had a very different ‘feel’ to it.  The Astros came into Safeco Filed not as a ‘curiosity’ via inter-league game, rather as a soon-to-be regular visitor to Safeco Field as the newest (and least regarded) member of the American League West.   And with that came a sense of unease, at times slowly eating away at the anticipation and excitement of being a part of Opening Day*esque festivities.   The Astros play the previous five games had only served to magnify this unease.  Still, Opening Day*esque baseball was back, and I was still looking forward to being a part of it.

And I was still looking forward to it even after two of my close friends who I’d invited to join me and my colleagues on  the trip to Safeco held us up from getting to the park for a collective hour-plus as they attempted to get their shit straight… Yes, I was annoyed (read: pissed off).  Fortunately, for the sake of my colleagues who actually wanted to see most of the Opening Day*esque baseball pre-game festivities, I drove like the proverbial bat out of hell’ and made up 30 minutes on the trip.  [Unfortunately, Washington loves their photo-radar machines and I am unconvinced that fortune may have shown brightly enough upon me yesterday to have avoided all (or even many) of the photo-radar sped-traps set up on I-5 North to Seattle].  That said, we arrived at Safeco safely, and in time to see many (but not all) of the Opening Day*esque festivities.  And in arriving at the park, whatever difficulties or apprehensions involved in so doing were instantly gone.  It was, after all, live baseball.  On a beautiful night. In a great venue.  And once again all seemed right with the world.

Admittedly, I was hoping (against hope) I would get the opportunity to witness an Astros win against ‘hated divisional foe’ the Seattle Mariners, but that was not to be (Astros lost 3-0).  I did, however, get to witness an encouraging outing from Astros’ starter Philip Humber (6.0 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, BB, 2 SO, 1.11 WHIP, 3.09 ERA).  And, fortunately, I did not have to endure another 10-plus strikeout performance (8 on the night) by the Astros (and remained aware of the ‘K-Count’ throughout the game as my colleagues made every effort to ensure that I could not remain oblivious to Astros’ whiffs (either during the present game or for the Astros season-to-date)), so there is that.  Most importantly, however, I got to see baseball – Astros baseball (even if it was the craptastic version that we’ve seen since game two of the 2013 season).  And despite the loss, in being at a baseball game and enjoying all that goes along with being at a game, all was right with the world once again.

Athletics 9, Astros 3

W: Anderson (1-1)
L: Harrell (0-2)

In a way, we have a similar road, the Astros and I. You see, I’ve got opportunities. I just got handed a chance to do something I’ve wanted to do for years, a chance that isn’t really going to change my life the way I thought it would if it’d happened back when I first wanted it, but it could definitely make the fringes of my existence a lot more interesting.

This’ll be a real gutcheck. Am I up to this challenge? Do I have what it takes to seize this one, or am I only partway good enough, smart enough, resourceful enough? I am determined though, a determination I had all those years ago but now maybe I’ve got a better sense of awareness and pacing.

The Astros? Well, I guess they’ve got some opportunities too. Are they up to the task? Everybody says no. Even the most wildeyed Media Guide-thumping True Believers out there know that the absolute pie in the sky ceiling of possibility is to approach mediocrity. This team isn’t going to be the Miracle Mets. This team isn’t going to surprise everyone even like last year’s Pirates. This team will be extraordinarily lucky to crack 65 wins, and if they did it would only be by scratching and clawing as if they were buried in a coffin, six feet under. That is not an entirely unreasonable characterization of where they are, and what it’s going to be like when they finally do pop out of the dank wormy earth that surrounds their box.

It’s too early to slip into the same ruts we were in last season, explaining the grind of futility in some colorful way. There are some spots on this team that have potential. Not all of it, to be sure, but enough of the players are battling to find themselves and their place. They were well-regarded prospects at one time, and though they might have been tested and found wanting by others they could still align their talent and opportunities into something more than they are right now. As a team? No. Way too many holes to really compete for an entire season. In places? Sure. Matt Dominguez, Chris Carter, Brandon Barnes, Jason Castro, Lucas Harrell, Josh Fields, Brad Peacock, Jose Altuve – these guys can all play, and some of them might turn that Mighty Corner and be the building blocks for the future.

Or they might all fail into sub-mediocrity. We ought to get those answers this year.

Rock and Roll means well, but it can’t help tellin’ young boys lies.

***

It didn’t take long for Sunday’s game to get away. Harrell didn’t have his control, and if a groundball pitcher doesn’t have that he doesn’t have anything. The A’s were able to wait for him to throw over the plate and then they slapped him around. Crisp had two hits, including a home run; Lowrie had three hits, including a two-run homer; Chris Young had a three-run shot. Maxwell scratched out a couple of hits, Carter had a booming triple to left-center in response. Fourteen strikeouts for Houston today, against pitchers who really don’t strike out that many. This was Houston’s fifth straight loss, and a tough way to end a homestand before a West Coast swing.

A’s 6, Astros 3

contributed by Mr. Happy

One of my favorite big league managers of all time was the late Earl Weaver, who once said that the secret to winning baseball games was pitching and three run homers. Tonight, the Astros got starting pitching and one three run dinger, but it proved not to be enough, as the home nine dropped their fourth in a row to the ageless Bartolo Colon and the Oakland Athletics 6-3. The problem for the Astros tonight was one Ronny Cedeno, whose critical error in the sixth inning allowed three unearned runs score in a four run uprising that made a loser out of Bud Norris, whose gutsy 122 pitch performance deserved better. Ronny Cedeno will remind no one of the Orioles’ rangy Mark Belanger at SS.

The bats came to life a little tonight against Colon, highlighted by Jason Castro’s three run oppo that put the Astros out in front 3-1. The Astros garnered eight hits against Colon in his six frames. However, Colon, a wily veteran who doesn’t walk anyone, wormed his way off of the ropes by using his famous sinker to induce an inning-ending twin killing in his last frame, one of his ten groundball outs. Colon doesn’t strike out too many hitters anymore, but, at 39, he remains a serviceable big league starter. The A’s shut-down bully slammed the door on the Astros, who managed eight hits with only four (yes, four) strikeouts tonight.

Some observations are in order. I applauded Bo Porter in the Game Zone for sticking with Norris at a point where the pitch count priests were apoplectic. A few of us questioned the decision to play Ronny Cedeno at SS against a right-hander, particularly since, in all likelihood, Cedeno will start again today against the portsider. The only explanation must have been to give Jose Altuve a night off in the field. I have been less than impressed with Cedeno since his late signing at the end of spring training.

Poor Chris Carter, who accounted for half of the Astros’ strikeouts and who didn’t hit the ball out of the infield, is lost right now. For his sake, Bo Porter must give him today off to settle down. J.D. Martinez and Brandon Barnes can man the corners today, particularly against the lefty. Dallas Keuchel threw a serviceable three innings, surrendering only Seth Smith’s meaningless opposite field homerun. Keuchel was in a serious corners jam in the eighth inning when he induced a nifty 1-6-3 off the bat of the Sasquatch (Josh Reddick, per Austro) to save the save opportunity for Grant Balfour. Ron Brand owes Keuchel a cold one for that.

Lucas Harrell goes today against a tough lefty, Brett Anderson, as the Astros try to avoid a series brooming by the visitors. Come check us out in the Game Zone. We don’t bite. Unless you say something idiotic.