SEASONS IN HELL, VOL. II, NO. 3

May 31-June 3, 2010

Nationals (25-26) vs. Astros (17-33)

Minute Maid Park
501 Crawford Street
Houston, TX 77002

**********

MEMORIAL DAY MUSINGS. The 2010 Memorial Day celebration features an afternoon series-opener between the young-ish and ascending Washington Nationals, and your old-ish and circling-the-drain Houston Astros. Contain yourselves, people. However, this series is less meaningless that it normally would be, mostly because of the Nats, née Senators, who are reportedly emerging as a truly interesting team to watch.

Personally, I am glad the Nationals are coming to town, as I haven’t seen them yet this year, and I want to know what all the hoo-ha (relatively speaking) is about. Washington has cobbled together a collection of talented vagabonds (Adam Dunn), once-greats (Pudge Rodriguez – currently on the DL – and Livan Hernandez), useful plodders (Josh Willingham), emerging stars (Ryan Zimmerman), and exciting newcomers (Nyjer Morgan and Stephen Strasburg, among others) into a competitive and interesting team. (OK, I jumped the gun on Strasburg, but he is the first thing everyone brings up when the subject is the Washington Nationals. . . Strasburg is the pitching wunderkind currently shutting down minor league offenses on his way to an almost sure call-up later this season. . . His minor league record in his debut season, so far: 6-1, 0.99 ERA, 22 hits and 54 strikeouts in 45+ innings through 9 starts in AA and AAA. . . There was some speculation Strasburg might get his first major league start against the Astros in this series, but insider wisdom now has his debut pushed back to the June 8-10 set vs. the Pirates. . . The Astros, or the Pirates, hmmm. . . The Nationals apparently want to optimize the youngster’s chances at initial success.) One of the joys of being a baseball fan generally is seeing each season which team or teams one totally did not expect to do anything emerge as something other than a running joke or a perpetual also-ran. This season, for me, it’s the Nationals. Maybe one season, in the distant future, it’ll be the Astros.

Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye on this Monday’s game whilst meanwhile in the midst of some serious gluttony, perverse behavior, no doubt excessive drunkenness, and (hopefully) some stimulating voyeurism. In other words, I’ll try and keep track of the Astros game while also participating enthusiastically in my neighborhood’s annual Memorial Day block party.

This friendly holiday get-together, which started off 18 years ago as six young families on my street meeting in someone’s backyard to barbecue, drink, and shoot fireworks, has by now grown to include three contiguous city blocks, with a concomitant increase and variation in the shenanigans involved when a whole lot of ‘grown-up’ friends get together and get sloppy drunk and drop some of their inhibitions. At our confab a few years back, as reported here, my neighbor’s usually shy and demure wife got tanked up on tequila, and/or repressed something-or-other, and suddenly jumped up in front of 30 or so of us and ripped off her shirt, revealing some really decent (as I recall) All-American middle-aged suburban housewife breastesses. Last year, I think it was, another couple we know got into a loud, beer-fueled, mid-party public argument, which culminated with the wife threatening to engage in a mega-dalliance that evening with whichever neighborhood guy or guys would step up to the plate, so to speak; all in the name of a sort of revenge-fuck scenario. I, of course, was superficially appalled at this loss of public decorum – I was standing right next to my wife and a couple of her friends when this scene broke out – and I never found out for sure, a.) if she was serious, and b.) if so, who took her up on her threat/promise/offer. Oh, I heard rumors afterward, but I don’t truck in salient gossip and rumors :sniff:  Frankly, I doubt anything actually came of it. Usually these drunken encounters are laughed off for the next few days, and forgot (mostly) within a week or so. Until the next party, that is.

But, anyway, amidst all this Peyton Place-ish fun, I’ll be keeping an eye on the Astros game. Partly to see the Nationals for myself, yes. But also because, as tempting as it is, I do not want to semi-ignore the 2010 Astros and let this season get by me. As one gets older, one realizes how quickly time can slip by, and how the people or things one really loves can get away, especially if they are ignored or taken for granted. As the lady once said, sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone. I don’t want that to happen to me, not this year or any year, not with the Astros. And anyway, a team as bad as this version of the ‘Stros can be as interesting to watch as a successful outfit, if you look at it in a certain way. Somewhere down the line, three or five or seven years from now, when our team is back in the thick of things, we’ll perhaps be able to look back at 2010 and say, there is where the turnaround began. That is when the team bottomed out and finally started to do the things it took to get them back among the elite. I want to be able to clearly remember these bad times, which will make the good times even sweeter, when they come. It is not the same if I have to look it up on Baseball Reference or somewhere, because I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time.

**********

PITCHING MATCHUPS

Monday May 31, 2010
Game Time: 1:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSH
Promotion: Nine Inning Lunch Break, sponsored by O’Reilly Auto Parts. For $40 you get a field box seat, and vouchers for $20 worth of MMPUS food; which translates roughly to a 6-inch overcooked hot dog, and a 10 oz. bottle of water.
Matchup: Washington – Luis Atilano (4-1, 4.82) Atilano is a kind of scatter-armed right-hander who is usually gone by the middle innings because of a high pitch count. He did beat Tim Lincecum in his last start – well, he left after 5 1/3 innings on a day Lincecum wasn’t in top form, and his bullpen held the lead for him. 2010 Run Support: 4.86 per start.
Houston – Roy Oswalt (3-6, 2.35) Expect Oswalt to pitch anywhere from quite well to exellent, and to either get a no-decision, or pick up his seventh loss. 2010 Run Support: 2.30 per start.

Tuesday June 1, 2010
Game Time: 7:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSH
Promotion: Double Play Tuesday, sponsored by Powerade. Too complicated to explain, it is not worth your trouble, take my word for it.
Matchup: Washington – Craig Stammen (1-2, 5.60) Stammen is the leading candidate for demotion from the rotation when Stephen Strasburg gets called up. He did pitch well in his most recent start, versus the Giants. 2010 Run Support: 4.30 per start.
Houston – Brett Myers (3-3, 3.22) Meyers continues to be solid this year, and while he has been treated more kindly by factors out of his control than Oswalt has this season, he probably deserves a better W-L record than he has. That’s life, I guess. 2010 Run Support: 4.20 per start.

Wednesday June 2, 2010
Game Time: 7:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSH
Promotion: None
Matchup: Washington – John Lannan (2-2, 5.01) Lannan is one of those guys who has looked like he is about to put it all together and become a top notch starting pitcher for awhile now. He is still only 25. His problems to date have mostly centered around arm injuries, but that seems to be behind the lefty now. He has pitched really well in his last four starts, and appears to be ascendant. 2010 Run Support: 4.70 per start.
Houston – Wandy Rodriguez (2-7, 5.37) Among all the things that have gone wrong for the Astros in 2010, the decline and fall of Wandy is one of the more troubling. He looks less like the composed and precise Wandy of the past few seasons and more like the confused and disorganized Wandy of earlier years more and more with each start. He got hammered last time out in Cincy, getting knocked out early and pushing the already at-the-breaking-point bullpen closer to the, well, to the breaking point. 2010 Run Support: 3.10 per start.

Thursday June 3, 2010
Game Time: 1:05 p.m. CDT
Television: FSH
Promotion: Nine Inning Lunch Break again, brought back by popular demand indifference. Whoo-ha!
Matchup: Washington – Walter “The Big Train” Johnson (417-279, 2.17) The Nationals rotation is all fucked up at this point, so manager Jim Riggleman has Johnson pitching in a pinch. Even though The Big Train has been dead now for 65 years, Riggs says he still has something left on his fastball, and most observers give the admittedly long-moldering Johnson a better than even chance of shutting down the Astros offense.
Houston – Mark “The Thermonuclear Hothead” Lemongello (21-29, 3.65) After having witnessed Brian Moehler’s recent ‘emergency start’ in lieu of Bud Norris, it looks like Astros manager Brad Mills will give the nod to Lemongello to take the ball for this one. The erratic and irrational Lemongello, who tore his Astros uni to shreds after one bad start, and bit his own shoulder after another, will need a work-release assignment from whichever prison he is likely a resident of these days to be able to pitch in the game. I always thought Lemongello should’ve done something creative with his last name, like fellow Jersey-ite John Bongiovi. Le Mon Jello, yeah, that’s it, sounds kinda French.

**********

FORTUNATE SON. I walked out of my front door this morning, with the intention of finding a suitable place in my front yard to plant my American flag.

My flag isn’t big or fancy or anything – three feet by five feet, I think, and affixed to a homemade pully system I welded to an eight foot, 2” metal pipe several years ago. At the time I wanted to show my boys, who were little then, how to properly raise and lower a flag. I wasn’t trying to overtly force reverence for the flag or patriotism on them. That would have been pointless, as it always is. I just thought it might have been useful to them in the future to know flag-raising and -lowering decorum. Which, I guess it was, I don’t really know. At any rate, that flag evolved into the one I reflexively jam into the front yard for the “big” holidays – Memorial Day, 4th of July, Veteran’s Day, etc. I don’t even know for sure why I do this, really.

I have never been a flag-waver, and to be honest, I am always a bit uncomfortable around people who are. There is nothing wrong with it, it is just not for me. I do not think one has to be overt about it to be deeply patriotic. Just because I tune out Kate Smith and her successors at the ballpark every time that 100-year-old song that means almost nothing to anyone is played does not mean I do not have deep feelings about the country and the men who have served it, and/or deep misgivings about 9-11, the immediate aftermath of which is when the God Bless America tradition at the ballpark started, I believe. Love the country, HATE the song.

I got into a violent argument once about the Lee Greenwood song, God Bless The USA. It is, I argued, a flagrant and smarmier rip-off of the already smarmy God Bless America, written and sung by a talentless hack; the lyrics are actually negative and defeatist (“at least I know I’m free” At least?); all it really adds up to is Lee Greenwood’s bank account gets fatter (through royalties) every time there is a national tragedy and hundreds of citizens are killed and that piece of shit song gets dragged out, again. I got punched right in the chest for my trouble on that one.

I don’t know why I react so negatively to coercive patriotism/nationalism. I do know I wasn’t taught to be that way. My parents weren’t subversives at all; in fact my maternal grandfather, my mother’s father, was an immigrant from Eastern Europe and one of the most overtly patriotic people I’ve ever met. At any rate, the reaction I have isn’t even a thinking process; it is visceral and basic, like being repulsed by spiders, or a bad odor.

To be honest, I think I just react negatively to people wanting to decide for me what I must believe in, or how I should feel, to qualify for whatever their concept of what a ‘real American’ is. But, I don’t mean to make too big a deal of this, it is nothing most of the time. I don’t hold my ears or make faces whenever God Bless America is cued up at a ballgame, I just tune it out. As long as they leave me alone, I don’t care what anyone else wants to feel about it.

I do put the flag out on Memorial Day, though. Just because I don’t buy into the cookie-cutter definition of what patriotism is does not mean I do not want to honor the guys who died fighting in our wars. I absolutely do; and, interestingly, from some of what I’ve read, a great many of those guys didn’t buy into any pat definition of patriotism, either. Whatever they believed when they enlisted (if they did), many who survived say that when the heat was on, they weren’t thinking about preserving our inalienable rights, or defending big business or the American Way or anything like that. All they were really fighting for was the buddy next to them in the foxhole, or the guys in their unit, whatever. When they were being shot at, history’s big picture meant little to them, and patent bromides about the glory of dying for those back home meant nothing. That stuff was mostly written by guys who never were shot at, anyway; who never saw action at all.

Those guys in the trenches and foxholes and rice paddys, the one’s who did not get to come home, the one’s who we honor on this day – they were likely part of an arbitrarily thrown together group, made up of men from all over, all colors and ethnic backgrounds and beliefs. And whatever their initial misgivings may have been, they put them aside and banded together and fought to the death for each other; and, as a consequence, for us. Which is as it should be, I think. Fuck the phony patriotic bullshit. A bunch of very different people coming together and fighting a common enemy to the death, for our benefit, side by side. . . if that does not epitomize what we believe America is really all about, then what the fuck does, I ask you? I’m planting the flag in my lawn for those guys, all those guys; and despite all the hedonistic dissolution the Memorial Day holiday brings and has come to represent in our culture, I will be thinking of them, and what they did and how they ended up, all the way up to when I drain my last brewski of the day. Thanks to you all, the beer sure is good. You can rest in peace.

That’s just me, showing my patriotism. I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it, but I hope all the dead guys understand.

And there’s winners and there’s losers
But it ain’t no big deal
‘Cause the simple man, baby, pays for the thrills, the bills
The pills that kill

**********

INJURIES

Washington
•A whole shitload of guys you’ve never heard of – and who I don’t feel like listing here. The highlights are Pudge Rodriguez (bad back, out until late next week) and Jason Marquis, who has bone chips in his pitching elbow and is awaiting surgery

Houston
• Alberto Arias (RHP) – Out for the season after right rotator cuff surgery
• Bud Norris (RHP) – Placed on the 15-day DL on May 28 with a bursitis and elbow tendinitis and a seriousy fucked-up ERA

**********

ALL ALONE IN THE END ZONE. It is easy to bitch and moan about the 2010 Houston Astros – I’ve done so myself, believe it or not, a few times here and there lately. But of course, the better part of me knows that sometimes in life you don’t get exactly what you were hoping for, and sitting around whining about what you did end up with really isn’t a viable option. You just have to go with what you’ve got. Sure, the Astros offense this season resembles a giant slice of Swiss cheese, and the starting rotation looks like the Maginot Line after the Germans and anyone else who wanted to march past/around/through it were done. Too bad, so sad, that is what we have for this season. So we just have to show up with it, every damn day, and hope for the best.

For some reason, thinking about this (and with Craig’s recent excellent recounting of his high school track career in mind, also) I was reminded of something that happened back when I was in high school. After football ended in the fall of my senior year, and before baseball practice started in the spring, all the inactive athletes/baseball players were dumped into what we called “rag PE”, a 4th period gym class which was basically made up of all the kids not participating in any school sport, or ‘extracurricular activity,’ as they called it back then. Some of the kids in the class had some undeveloped talent, but were just not inclined to play organized sports; but by far most were true non-athletes. When the rest of us were put into that class, the coaches pretty much left us to our own devices. I guess they figured, like in a prison, the alpha figures would emerge and run things, and as long as there wasn’t a riot or a lot of illicit homosexual sex, we would mostly be left alone.

Sure enough, right away, the class divided itself into two groups. One, led by one of my best friends, a guy who lived down the street from me named Suarez, went off to an open field behind the auto shop and started playing some game they had made up and that appeared, from a distance, to be a mix of American football, rugby, soccer, and maybe Greco-Roman wrestling. I played with them for a couple of weeks, but I never could figure out the rules. I think they were made up on the fly. It was a cool game and all, but for whatever reason I just couldn’t get into it. Eventually, I drifted over to the other group.

That group had separated into two large teams, maybe 25-30 people on each, evenly mixed with athletes (jocks, in the parlance), and non-athletes (stoners, brains, hoods, straights/narcs, etc.) They played a big touch football game on the practice field next to the boys gym every day. The rules were that no athlete could do anything except stand around on the line and bullshit during the plays. Only the non-athletes were allowed to man the “skill” positions, which in this game meant wide receiver, mainly. However, myself and a pretty good curveball pitcher we called ‘Montrose’ (because he wore a Ronnie Montrose T-shirt every third school day) were designated as QB and nominal leader of each team, the thinking being no play would ever be completed or even be got off if the QBs were stoners, or brains. The challenge for Montrose and I was to see which of us could get the most out of our mostly unskilled and highly disorganized charges, and win the game each day.

It was an all-pass game, three alligator rush, three completes for a first down. On offense, I would stand back in a deep shotgun formation, deploy my twenty or so eligible split ends and flankers, call the signals, and then start scrambling around like hell, because no one ever counted all the way to three alligators. I’d be looking with some expediency for an open guy, any open guy, on my team, who I thought might have an outside chance at catching the ball if I threw it his way.

I don’t know how the kids on my team felt about me or those games, but I had a great time playing with them. Right away I found out that a skinny, long-haired, braces-wearing sophomore stoner named Derek had hands sticky like glue (or maybe THC resin), and would catch just about everything I threw his way. He was a friend of my brother’s, which is the only reason I threw the ball to him in the first place. But when I realized how reliable he was, he became my go-to guy, my clutch receiver, sort of my Fred Biletnikoff, I guess. He rarely let me down. There were a few other kids like that, ones with no discernable athletic tendencies who, when they actually got involved in the game, surprised us all (and maybe themselves) with their latent touch football skillz.

My favorite day of that whole experience, we had played almost to the end of the period and were behind a few points, and I knew we needed a really big play to pull that day’s contest out. I thought about my man Derek, but there were problems with that choice. First of all, he wasn’t real fast, and he wasn’t inclined to run very much anyway (most of his receptions were on three to five yard dump passes I threw to him when I was being chased all over hell and back by, like, twenty defensive linemen.) Plus, even the spastics non-athletes on the opposing team eventually figured out Derek was my favorite receiver, and he was octuple-teamed on many plays. So sending him deep then wasn’t a really good option. I considered my other resources, such as they were, and finally settled on a guy we called Switchblade, a vaguely athletic looking ‘hood’ who was a junior, I think, although he sported a moustache and full beard.

I told Switchblade to line up on the right side and run straight up the field, and I’d hit him. I told the rest of the guys to run around and look for an open spot, in case I had to check down on the play. We all exchanged a fist bump and then broke the huddle and lined up. On the snap I rolled right, and noticed right away the guys on the D-line had made no pretense of counting alligators at all this time, and were coming after me. I looked for Switchblade, but under pressure he’d fucked up his pattern completely, and had run about a 15-yard out, which wouldn’t have done us much good at that point, even if by some miracle I was able to deliver the ball somewhere in his vicinity, and he caught it. I checked for Derek. He’d actually run a fairly deep pattern up the middle, but was heavily covered by seven or eight guys, plus I noticed my counterpart Montrose, playing free safety for his team, had started drifting over in Derek’s direction. Then I saw, all the way across on the left sideline, one of my guys streaking straight up the field, wholly uncovered. It was a kid we called T-Shirt.

In those days, we wore school-issued jockstraps and grey flannel gym shorts to PE. That was it – no shoes, no shirt, nothing else. There was this one kid in the class, though, whose fundamental religious beliefs did not allow him to run around that scantily-clad in public, even if just at PE, so he wore blue jeans and a white t-shirt out there every day. T-Shirt was very pale, about 5′ 4″, and he couldn’t have weighed more than 90 lbs. The whole time I was in that class, I’d never heard the kid say a word, to me or anyone else. He was on my team, but I’d never even thrown him a ball. But I didn’t have a lot of other options right then; I was nearing the right sideline, and the other team’s rushers were closing in. So I checked to see if T-Shirt was looking back my way, which he wasn’t. I let it fly, anyway, right before three or four guys on the other side grabbed me by the stretched-out waistband of my shorts and pulled them (and me) down.

That pass seemed like it went 50 yards in the air, but it was probably more like 25 or 30 (I couldn’t throw a pass 50 yards.) I sat there on the ground with the guys who’d “sacked” me, and watched the rest of the play. As the ball got nearer to T-Shirt, I realized I’d led him pretty well, and if he saw it he’d at least have a shot at catching the perfectly spiraling ball, a very long shot, but. . . At almost the same time, it occurred to me a regulation-size football, coming from that far and high, point-down, might kill him if he didn’t catch it.

I think everyone on the field that day was watching as the ball approached T-Shirt, most of us expecting a negative outcome. T-Shirt finally looked back, at the last minute, and then reached up for the ball on about the five-yard line. The force of it knocked him over, and he tumbled into the end zone. I couldn’t see what happened to the ball from where I was. Then I saw T-Shirt get up slowly, holding the ball under one arm, and smiling big. Everybody on both teams started jumping up and down and running toward him, and some were chanting “T-Shirt, T-Shirt. . . ” He tried to act all nonchalant and all, but no way.

I don’t know what ever happened to T-Shirt, what became of him after high school. Wherever he is, I’ll bet he remembers making that catch. He should, it was one of the best receptions I have ever seen, by anyone, anywhere. I am guessing that day was probably one of T-Shirt’s better ones. I know I still remember it very clearly, because it was definitely one of mine.

You know, man, when I was a young man in high school
You believe it or not?
I wanted to play football for the coach

And all those older guys
They said he was mean and cruel, but you know
I wanted to play football for the coach

They said I was too little and too lightweight to play linebacker
So I’m playing right end
But I wanted to play football for the coach
I had to play football for the coach

Because, you know some day, man
You gotta stand up straight
Unless you’re gonna fall
Then you’re going to die

Astros lose the series, 1-3.

THE WEATHER

**********

Something’s been nagging at me for a while about the Astros, and about Drayton McLane in particular.  Why is it he, moreso than perhaps any other baseball owner, gets singled out as misguided or foolish in his expectations and management of the franchise?

I’m looking primarily at the national media, the Ken Rosenthals, Keith Laws and Jayson Starks of the world.  If another owner makes an ill-advised or risky free agent signing, there will be hemming and hawing about the cost and what they were thinking, but when the Astros sign a Kaz Matsui or Mike Hampton, the knives come out.  He’s delusional, he’s cheap, he spends too much, he has tunnel vision, he strong-arms his GM.   We who know better know the lines so well, they’re like barroom standards that refuse to die.  And yet dumbass radio fans just regurgitate them like liturgy.

I literally cannot think of any other owner who gets this particular kind of criticism; Steinbrenner has a somewhat similar “just win, baby” attitude, but his endless coffers are the chief target of critics.  David Glass in Kansas City is hounded for driving a once-successful franchise into the ground and a dedicated fanbase to despair, but he’s mostly portrayed as cheap and clueless.  Tom Hicks is a spend-crazy gringo, but his star has crashed significantly later, and he’s only technically still the Rangers’ owner.  Dan Loria is a cheapskate, and Peter Angelos is an asshole, but beyond them, everyone else is pretty much anonymous.

So why does Drayton get hated on?  Consider this: Colorado signed Eric Byrnes to a similarly delusional contract, and released him sooner, yet it was treated like a light hearted comedy, with a beer league ending.  Yet Kaz’s release was treated as though the ill-omen albatross had finally flown away.  What’s the difference between those two signings?

Is it the earnestness with which Drayton makes his pitch to fans, with the inevitable response being , “Do you really believe this shit?”  Is it that the writers just generally like Gerry, and have been opposed to Drayton since Gerry lost that battle of the wills?  Does he sneak into the press box and crop dust the rows with burrito farts?  Did the writers have an actual uncle named Drayton who used to dress up in an ice cream vendor outfit and molest them?  I’ve got nothing.

Probable Pitchers

Friday, May 28th. 6:10 PM CST

Great American Ballpark

Wandy Rodriguez (2-6, 4.33) v. Sam LeCure (0-0, 0.00)

Well, shit.  Another gat-dam rookie.  We know where this is going.  We want it to be different.  We want to believe that each subsequent time will be different.  But it won’t.

Wandy is 6-6 lifetime against the Reds; he owns Jay Bruce , but Ramon Hernandez and Jonny “Not A Typo” Gomes hit him well.

Saturday, May 29th. 6:10 PM CST

Great American Ballpark

Brian Moehler (0-1, 4.42) v. Aaron Harang (3-5, 5.98)

This was Bud’s spot, but he pulled a muscle or some shit.  So Moehler gets to start, and he’s been pretty horrible against the Pasta-Chili-Fuckers, so expect some lucky fans in outfield deck seats to get a ball to play with.  Ahem.  Joey Votto has a preposterous 1.857 OPS against him.  I think that means that he hits two homers each at bat, but my math could be wrong.

Harang has been a launching pad for Berkman, so hopefully homer #8 will happen here.  Most other ‘stros hit him well, including Moehler, who’s .500 for life against Harang.  Oh yeah: Gunther has 5 K’s against him.  Of course.

Sunday, May 30th. 12:10 PM CST

Great American Ballpark

Felipe Paulino (0-7, 5.08) v. Mike Leake (4-0, 2.70)

It’d be a damned shame for Paulino to start 0’fer against the damned Reds, but Leake is their de facto ace this year.   Paulino is 1-4 lifetime against Cincy, and Laynce Nix and Bruce hitting him hard as well.

I could write about how Leake was the latest pitcher to do well in his only start against us, but I’m getting the Hate Shakes just thinking about it, so at the insistence of my cardiologist, we’re moving on to….

PPPPROMOTIONS!

Friday: Bald Eagle Flight.  Guess what the bird has that Ohioans don’t?  That’s right: a job.

Saturday: Joey Votto RealDoll Figurine  Gawd, that’s creepy looking. 

Sunday: Run the Bases Day AND  Reds Skateboard Deck.  Kids caught using the skateboards to navigate the bases will be shot on sight. 

Injuries

Astros:

Bud Norris – 15 Day DL: Bursitis and tendonitis.  Basically, Bud’s got The Itis.  Too much ribs, man.

Tim Byrdak – Rehabing in Round Rock. Telling Wes Wright that people in Houston miss him, but mostly because they think he’s Michael Bourn’s teenage brother.

Alberto Arias – Missing in Action, Chuck Norris is looking to bring him home…or else.

Cincy:

Homer Bailey: 15-Day DL, appearing in a John Steinbeck novel.

Chris Dickerson: 15-Day DL, starring in porn film as Dick Chrisserson.

Edinson Volquez: 60-Day DL, starring in anti-drug PSA.

Joey Votto: day-to-day, planning his one man show, “Are You There, God?  It’s Me, Joey Votto.”

What to Watch For:

• Oswalt isn’t pitching, so all bets are off
• But Berkman is batting, so some dingers.
• Like you’ll be watching.  You’re going to your beach house, aren’t you?
• I wish I had a beach house.
• How do you stop the list function?
• .
• um
• am I trapped here?
• all weekend?
• shit.

Talk about it in the Game Zone!

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!”  The Good Guys begin 6 game roadie in Milwaukee hoping to make all their dreams come true, or just win a game or two before the All-Star break.  If this series is as hard to watch as some of the recent shitty efforts by this team it is going to take more than milk and Pepsi to get you through the ongoing soap opera that is the GZ. 

Probable Pitchers and Belly Itchers  

Tuesday, May 25  7:10 p.m.  CT Felipe “Help, there’s a hog in my kitchen” Paulino, RHP (0-6, 5.36) vs. Randy Wolf, LHP (3-4, 5.10) Felipe is winless this year and has never beaten the Brewers in his career. Ain’ that just a bright ray of sunshine for your day?  In limited ABs, Braun, Hart and Gerut all hit over .500 against him.  Wolf hasn’t been smelling like a rose either this year:  “I’m concerned about the fact that I stink,” Wolf said. “I’m not going to candy-coat it.” Q and Blum happen to like Wolf’s aroma: they both hit over .500 on him, but Berkman just runs to showers when Wolf is around, in 30PA he bats a paltry .125 and slugs .208.  Phewee that stinks!

Wednesday, May 26 7:10 p.m. CT Roy “I ain’t got no run support stockings” Oswalt, RHP (2-6, 2.66) vs
Chris Narveson, LHP (4-1, 5.17)  Roy needs to get a grip on his Mantyhose and just STFU and pitch.  One more whiny ass remark from him and Berkman may just paste his pic HERE.  Whatever you do, don’t have your dadgum Oswalt inning when I Wear My Sunglasses at Night or Penis Nose are up, since they both have a .500 BA against you.  You had better just run to the ladies room, and get some fingernail polish to stop that run in your stockings real quick like. And remember, the heart goes on the front, big guy.  Narveson has only faced 6 Astros, 2 of which are pitchers.  Since no one has more than 5 ABs against him we might as well expect most of the batting order to run and hide with their tails between their legs when the southpaw starts his windup.

Thursday, May 27 12:10 p.m. CT  Brett “The Big Ragu” Myers, RHP (3-3, 3.25) vs Dave Bush, RHP (1-5, 5.59)  Myers has been a workhorse in this rotation, and has done well against the Brewers in his career, going 4-1 with a 1.77 ERA in eight games.  Current Brewers sport a .108 BA average, a .175 OBP and .189 SLG against Myers, so if we have a chance to salvage one game in this series, this is IT.  Plus, Bush characterizes his last outing as “the worst outing I’ve ever had at any level.”  He has high hopes however that the Astros do what they’ve done best this year–get opposing pitchers out of losing funks–and he has history on his side.  Bush has more wins against the Astros than any other team in his career. (in 13 appearances  Bush is 6-1 with a 3.46 ERA).

BooBoo Kitty Report

Astros–Arias is still out for the season.  Nothing new here folks.  Q did one too many splits and needs some of Roy’s support stockings for his sore groin, but is probably for this series.

Brewers–Is anyone not hurt on this team? 7 players on the DL for goodness sakes.  Zaun, Gamel and Hawkins all have shoulder problems, while Riske and Butler are throwing elbows.  The Sexy, Sexy Bitch is out with an oblique strain he got from posing in front of the mirror.  Doug Davis has been diagnosed with inflammation around the heart and is undergoing treatment expected to take a few weeks.

Promotions and Giveaways

Tuesday–It’s Singles Night! Get your beer goggles on so you can oodle those hot Milwaukee babes.

Wednesday—Brew Crew and the Zoo night! (Hey wasn’t that last night?) Plus, you get a Valvoline Instant Oil Change Special Coupon. 

Thursday–We give and we taketh away night–We give: Sports Authority Special Coupon and a $50 Appliance World Gift Card. We take: Books. Prince Fielder and Northwestern Mutual invite you to drop off any new or gently used children’s books during the Brewers Drive For Charity. Each fan that donates will receive a Prince Fielder Brewers collectible pin.

Come join your friends in the GameZone and watch some baseball night after night…….

The 2010 Houston Astros

Other than the gallows humour that permeates a season such as this, there is very little to like about watching these dead men walking striking out.  Last night was another gem which saw an opposing pitcher get his ERA below 1.00 and Carlos Lee get his BA back below .200.  Is Kaz Matsui still available?  The team record is now an excrutiating 14-27.

Read More

This guy!

So yeah, like a schlub, I managed to completely drop the ball on the fact that I drew the short straw for the Rockies 2 game series currently going on. Big whoop. Wanna fight about it? Anyway, it’s probably for the better, since I can’t really muster any hate for the Rockies. As everyone that’s ever talked about baseball with any male member of the Raup family for more than five minutes knows, a high school teammate of mine is pitching out of the Rockies pen. That makes watching the Good Guys (and Bretty Myers) play even more painful than usual, as even the rare offensive explosion from the Astros can quickly take a turn for the worse if Matty comes in and gives up some runs. So, root for the ‘Stros and root for Matty B to pitch well and the relievers after him to blow it.

Anyway, here is a down and dirty series preview for you. I can’t promise to quality, but hey, what else is new?

Minute Maid Park

Wednesday May 19, 7:05pm FSH-HD

Thursday May 20, 7:05pm FSH-HD

Projected Matchups From Astros.com

Tuesday

Greg Smith (1-2, 6.35) v. Felipe Paulino (0-6, 5.72)

Well, this game already happened, so I won’t sit here and bullshit you about anything. Go read the recap about this game. I promise it is better than anything I would’ve written about it.

Wednesday

Ubaldo Jiminez (7-1, 1.12) v. Roy Oswalt (2-5, 2.62)

Ubaldo has been a bonafide badass so far this year. He has electric stuff, and pretty much is blowing away opposing hitters. He’s already tossed a no hitter (against the Bravos), and his two “bad” outings were seven innings of two run baseball. Yikes.

But there *IS* some good news. The Good Guys actually hit Ubaldo pretty well as a team, sporting a .313 BA against him. Blummer (6-15) leads the charge, but Twinkie (4-11), Bourn (3-10), Spaz (3-10), and most impressively Feliz (3-4 with a homer and 3 RBIs) all have had some success against him. Kabong (1-7) hasn’t done much against Jiminez though, and Kepp (0-3) has really scuffled in a small number of at bats.

Roy has been pitching like an ace so far this year, but hasn’t gotten any run support at all for the cavalacade of slapdicks and freaks we call an offense so far. Maybe things will turn around…. Yeah, and maybe I’m a Chinese jet pilot.

Roy has pretty much owned the Rockies with a few minor exceptions, as indicated by the team batting average of .228 . Melvin Mora and Seth Smith both are 2 of 4 against him, but other than that, things look pretty grim for Los Rockies. Ageless Helton has hit a few homers off Roy, but nobody else has done much.

Notable Giveaways This Series

Thursday: Hot Damn! A laptop sleeve. Hey Drayton/Pam, when your product on the field is fucking terrible, usually it’s a good idea to try and bribe people to come to the ballpark with something cool. Not a fucking laptop sleeve. Wow.

Obnoxious MLB.com Injury Report Page

Astros
Arias is still out for the year.

Byrdak has a strained hammy and is out until late May.

Rockies

Taylor Buchholz shredded a ligament in his elbow, but is due back in June.

Jorge De La Rosa, Melvin Mora, and Franklin Morales all may or may not be injured. Fuck you, MLB.com, for your awful Fantasy Injury report.

Greg Reynolds had bone chips in his elbow, but is scheduled to have a few rehab starts soon.

Huston Street had a setback in his rehab from shoulder tightness in mid-May. No schedule is set for him yet.

Our Interesting Things To Look For

Hell, don’t ask me. I can’t even remember which previews I’m supposed to write.

Anyway, Go Astros! And Go Matty Belisle! Sorry again for the lateness, and I promise my next preview will be full of hate and anger and not apologies for being a dumbass.

My 30-year high school reunion is coming up this summer, but I’m not going. I was deliriously happy to get out of Lubbock after my senior year in 1980, and I’m still happy about it, so I don’t really see any reason to go back.

And since this is mid-May, it’s also the 30th anniversary of my crowning athletic achievement. Now it’s not much compared to the accomplishments of some of the other folks here on SpikesnStars, but we weren’t all destined for greatness I guess.

See, I’ve never been an athlete. I had double pneumonia when I was 6, and had asthma attacks and bronchitis every year in school. Plus, the one thing in the world that I’m most allergic to is cottonseed. And I grew up in Lubbock, where the cotton gins grind that shit up and spew it in the air. Throw in the spring dirt storms, and my lungs were tied in knots.

So I loved sports but didn’t have the endurance for real competition. But there was one thing I could do. I was tall and skinny (this was a long time ago, remember) and I could run like the wind … for about 100 yards. I could make one blazing burst of speed, but then I was gassed.

Anyway, May 1980. I’m about three weeks from graduating and getting the hell out of this school. Hallelujah. It was also the time of year when teachers had run out of ideas and were just mailing it in, trying to come up with shit for us to do to finish the year. Especially in PE class. For some reason, all the athletic kids on the official school teams had been dumped back into our PE class to finish out the year, so we had some members of the track team and other sports. The coaches decided the way to end the year was to split the class into two huge teams and have a track meet with all the events. Since we only had an hour of class time each day, this track meet would kill the last two or three weeks of school and everyone could loaf around, except during their events.

Well, what a surprise, all the track team members and other athletes got put on the same team, and the rest of us asthmatic nerds were put on the Washington Generals team. See, this way, the athletes got one more chance to break school records, or something. I was never sure about the details.

But our team of misfits actually turned out to be pretty good. The biggest, shyest girl in school turned out to be a star shot-putter. We won some other events and were hanging tight with the rich-boy athletes, and then it came time for my first event – the 880 relay. Now like I’ve said, I could burn up the track for about 100 yards, but my 220-yard leg in this relay was really pushing it.

The other team wasn’t completely made up of the school’s track regulars, but I think there were at least a couple of them. I was running the second leg, against this smart-ass punk who was fast, but not as fast as I was. I figured I could take him at the beginning, but was worried I might not hold him off when I ran out of gas. And I had no doubt that I would run out of gas.

Well the race started and by the time the baton was coming to me, my team was already behind by 10 or 15 yards. I took the baton cleanly and put my sights on the punk’s ass in the next lane. I noticed that he had really shitty running form, with his arms and baton all flailing around and shit … and then I was past him. I blew past that fucker before I even got up to full speed, and I started motoring into the turn.

And then I poured it on. I was rocking in the Driver’s Seat and no one was going to catch me.

(I know that song is from 1978, but I didn’t hear it until 1980; this was Lubbock, remember.) I would have rocked Foghat’s Drivin’ Wheel too, but there was no time because I was burning around the track and not slowing down. Man, I was cooking with gas. My weak-ass lungs felt like they were going to burst, but I didn’t slow down. It was the hardest I’ve ever run in my entire life. I finally made another clean hand-off, then staggered to the side and gasped for breath.

The coaches and other students were all staring at me in amazement, and I looked back and saw my punk-ass competition still staggering toward us way back down the track. I watched the rest of the race, and the rich boys gained on us steadily through the final two legs, but in the end we won because of the lead I’d built.

But while I was standing there basking in victory, I also knew I’d pushed it too hard. The air was full of pollen and cottonseed, there was a dirt storm on the horizon, and I’d badly overexerted myself. By the next day, the sky was brown with dirt and my lungs were brown with phlegm. Lubbock Lungbutter.

My trackstar days were over. Or so I thought.

Read the second part of the story, “How I Set the School Hurdles Record With My Balls,” after the Astros-Dodgers preview.

***********

Astros at Dodgers

Dodger Stadium

Monday, May 17, 9:10 p.m. CDT – FSH-HD
Tuesday, May 18, 9:10 p.m. CDT – FSH-HD

More late-night West Coast games. Kind of tough to stay up late just to watch the kind of slap-dickery we’ve been seeing, but I’ll probably watch anyway.

Notable giveaways

Tuesday – An Andre Ethier bobblehead; note how both his hands are gripping the bat from the top. No wonder he broke his pinky finger in batting practice. It’s going to suck for him if he has to miss his own bobblehead day, with a bobblehead that shows how not to grip a bat.

Projected Matchups from Astros.com

Monday
Wandy Rodriguez (2-4, 4.81)  v. John Ely (1-1, 3.86)

Wandy beat the Shitbirds in his last start, but he still doesn’t have a quality start this month. He’s 3-2 against the Dodgers with a 2.70 ERA. Russell Martin is the only Dodger with a homer off Wandy, though Ronnie Belliard and Dreamboat Manny have hit him well. In 14 AB’s against Wandy, Reed Johnson has five strikeouts and only two hits.

John Ely is not to be confused with Joe Ely, who also got the fuck out of Lubbock like I did. John Ely is a rookie making his fourth start. He lost to the fucking Mets in his first outing, but beat the Snakes last week. He’s never faced the Astros.

Tuesday
TBA v. Hiroki Kuroda (4-1, 2.66)

Well I don’t know who’s pitching for the Astros tonight, but since Chris Sampson went to Tech and had to live in Lubbock for a while too, I’ll just use his stats. He’ll probably get into the game tonight anyway.

James Loney is 3-for-5 against Sampson with two doubles, and Belliard has a homer off him. Ethier, Kemp, and Martin are a combined 3-for-18 against him.

The Dodgers are 6-1 in Kuroda’s starts this year. In three starts against the Astros, he’s gone 1-0 with an ERA under 2. Nobody on the Astros has done much against him. Geoff Blum has a homer, but it was his only hit in 5 at-bats against Kuroda. Hunter Pence and Carlos Lee are both 2-for-8 against him, and it gets worse from there.

Injury Report

Houston – Tim Byrdak is out until late this month with a strained hamstring.

Los Angeles – Andre Ethier has that busted pinky and may or may not make this series. Brad Ausmus is on the 60-day DL after having back surgery. Pitchers Vicente Padilla, Cory Wade, and Charlie Haeger are all out and will miss this series, but Rafael Furcal might be back.

Discuss tonight’s game in the Gamezone.

***************

So anyway, Lubbock 1980. As usual, I missed a week of school with bronchitis. It happened twice every school year, so it was a fitting end to my senior year.

When I got back to PE class, I was amazed to learn that the stupid track meet was still going. They’d missed several days because of the dirt storm, duh, and were hustling to try to finish up. Well, fuck it, I’d already run my event, plus I’d just spent a week with bronchitis and was still on antibiotics and I was weak as shit. I didn’t even bother putting on a gym suit, mainly because they’d been bugging us to clear out our lockers and take all our smelly shit home anyway, so I had.

But they said we had to finish the dumbass track meet because it was part of our final grade, so I just wore my jeans and PE shirt and went to the far end of the track where hopefully they wouldn’t notice me.

“Craig! Get over here, you’re running the hurdles!” Oh shit, one of the coaches found me.

“What? I’ve been sick; I can’t run! Plus I’ve never jumped a hurdle in my life!”

“Well hurry up and practice at it, you’ve got 10 minutes! And you can’t hurdle in those jeans. Go get a pair of shorts out my office.”

Great, not only do I have to run the stupid hurdles, but I have to wear the ratty-ass shorts someone else left behind. The only shorts I could find were a little too small for me, but I put them on and went back out to practice.

I pissed and moaned, but no one was around because they were all watching some other race, so I lined up at the hurdles to practice. I dashed toward the hurdles and stretched out in my first leap, and both of my balls popped out one of the legs of my shorts. (This was 1980, so guys’ shorts were pretty skimpy compared to the jodhpurs that pass for shorts today.)

I suddenly remembered why our coaches had insisted we wear jockstraps in PE class. (“Look, we’ve got girls in this class, and I don’t want any of you guys to do a squat-thrust and have your balls touch the floor!”) But my jockstrap was at home, and the race was here and now.

I veered off to the side, tucked my junk back into my shorts, and readjusted my tighty whities. Nope, they weren’t going to hold anything in place. And just like that, the coaches were heading my way and it was race time.

Then I realized who my opponent was going to be. It was John Elway, the school’s top track star. (It wasn’t really THE John Elway, but it was this snotty-ass rich-boy who looked just like Elway – perfect blond hair, all tanned and muscled, and with a condescending toothy smirk.) I also realized this was his last chance to break the school record, even though I was pretty sure he already owned it.

It was a really windy day (Lubbock, remember), but the wind was blowing hard across the track, not from behind or in front of us. The gun went off, I stretched out for the first hurdle, and sure enough, my nuts came out again. But I didn’t veer off the track this time, no sir! I was already headed for the next hurdle and I knew I had to clear it not only with my legs, but my sack as well. So that put a spring in my step.

Going over the second hurdle with my nuts in the wind, I had an epiphany – I realized there’s a rhythm to running the hurdles. So I got into the rhythm of the race and gave each jump a little extra bounce, because of … you know.

I don’t even know the length of the race or the height of the hurdles, but my balls never even grazed a gate. Untouched all the way to the endzone! I was concentrating so hard that as I cleared the last hurdle, and sprinted across the finish, I realized John Elway was BEHIND ME. HOLY SHIT HE WAS BEHIND ME.

I tucked in my stuff (I don’t think anyone even noticed it flapping around) and trotted back to the coaches with the stopwatches. The one who was timing me muttered in astonishment, “School record.” The other coach, timing the track star, said “Both of them. They both broke the school record.” (I thought to myself, “Yeah, you mean both my BALLS broke the school record.”)

And then the head coach looked at his track star who looked like John Elway, and he looked at the brown Lubbock sky, and said the words that ended my budding athletic career:

“Wind-aided. Doesn’t count.”

Aw fuck. My one shot at history, and it was tainted because it got windy in Lubbock. That fucking figures. But I know where the record really resides. In my pants.

So anyway I don’t think I’ll be going to the 30-year reunion. But I will stand on my front porch and wave my balls in the direction of West Texas.

Lubbock or Leave it, indeed.