Astros v Rangers Series

Posted on June 9, 2016 by BudGirl in Featured, Game Recaps, Uncategorized

Monday’s Nightmare
Astros 5, Rangers 6
W: Dyson, L: Giles
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So, I’m working a flex schedule for the summer and Monday was my first day off. It started out great, I went to the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion box office to get tickets for Jim Gaffigan and met a friend for lunch. So, I was in a good mood and relaxed when the game started. Didn’t take long for that to end. Mike Fiers seems to want to continue challenging the hitters to bail him out. He’s sitting at a cool 5.00 ERA for this season.

The hitters did their job for the most part. In fact, I thought the Rangers were being more than accommodating in trying to help the Astros win. I do not know why the Astros do not want to beat the assholes in Arlington. And they made it worse they by allowing Odor to be the one to get the winning hit. Ugh.

Tuesday’s Disaster
Astros 3, Rangers 4
W: Diekman, L: Keuchel, SV: Dyson
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Well, the Astros took the lead early in this one, then let it slip away. Keuchel seemed to pitch well until the 8th inning when he gave up a two-run bomb that was enough to give the bad guys the lead and enough for the win.

I have to admit, I love the Astros. I love this team but I was almost in tears of frustration by their futility when playing the Rangers. I know the boys are trying, you can see it on their faces and in their actions but they cannot seem to cross the barrier that allows them to get the win. I cannot imagine how frustrated they are.

Wednesday’s Recap was brought to you separately by Sphinx Drummond.

Thursday’s Must-Win Did Not Happen
Astros 3, Rangers 5
W: Perez, L: McHugh, SV: Diekman
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Not surprisingly, the Astros dropped another game to the Rangers. Instead of staying even with them by splitting the series, they fall back.

McHugh only lasted 3.2 innings and Devenski did a good job coming out of the pen. Feldman’s run didn’t matter since McHugh did enough damage. But, the Astros just cannot seem to find a way to get runners to cross home or fill the holes for the Rangers hits.

Work was a distraction from watching this game. Of course, the work distraction is not necessarily a good thing. But, that is for another discussion.

The Astros are 9 back of the Rangers and 4 back from .500. I was hoping for a better season. I was expecting a better season. There are so many problems with this team I have a hard time reconciling that with the trust I have in Luhnow. Not every move he makes is going to be good but I hope he has the character to own up to a bad decision and do what the can to make the right change. All this losing makes me sad. I like being happier better. And for that reason, I’m going to share a picture from the vacation I took in early May.
Siesta Key

Adrift Astros Avoid a Seattle Safeco Sweeping

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Sphinx Drummond in Game Recaps, Uncategorized

Astros win 7- 4 Bats came to life and the pitching wasn’t too bad.

WP: McHugh (2-3)

LP: Iwakuma (0-3)

Box Score

Game Zone

For the third time this year Jose Altuve lead off the game with a home run, to set up the Astros with an early lead. Altuve has 6 homers on the year. the lead wouldn’t last long. Robinson Cano hit a solo shot in the first, his 8th home this year, to tie the game at 1 run each after 1 inning.

In the third inning the Astros scored two more runs after back to back doubles by Jason Castro and Jose Altuve, and a single apiece from George Springer and Carlos Correa. The Mariners couldn’t match, only putting up 1 run in the frame.

The Astros scored 2 more in the 5th and 2 more again in the 7th. The Mariners did manage to score a couple of more runs, one in the 6th and one in the 9th.

McHugh threw 101 pitches through 5 innings and was good enough to limit Seattle to two runs. Sipp, Harris, Giles, and Gregerson finished the game in succession, with Sipp and Gregerson allowing a run each.

Altuve leads the AL with 17 extra base hits on the year. He’s hitting .330 now. He is so awesome. In spite of all the terrible play and losing, the Astros are still only 5 games out of first place. There are plenty of reasons to remain optimistic for now.

Thursday is an off day. Friday they’ll be in Oakland and Mike Fiers will face Sean Manaea at 9:05pm CST.

The Mariners could only put 14,173 fans in the seats last night. West coast games…

Astros Blown Up By The Bombers

Posted on April 7, 2016 by Sphinx Drummond in Game Recaps, News, Uncategorized

No chance for perfect record now.

WP Pineda (1-0)
LP: McHugh (0-1)
SV: Nova (1)

BOXSCORE

GAMEZONE

Backed by a first inning solo homer by Carlos Correa, Colin McHugh was ready to face the Yankees in the bottom of the first. He was awful. He couldn’t be blamed for the catcher’s interference call that put lead off hitter Jacoby Ellsbury on and opened the flood gates, but everything else was on McHugh. Walks, Singles, Doubles, McHugh seemed in an extremely inappropriate charitable mood. Finally after 5 runs had scored and only one out recorded, A.J. Hinch had seen enough and replaced McHugh with Michael Feliz.

Feliz didn’t make it too much harder for the Bombers but eventually retired the side allowing only one more run to score, making it 6-1 in favor of the Yankees at the end of the first inning. It looked like it was going to be one of those night. But, then for a moment it didn’t.

The Astros came roaring back in the top of the second climaxed by George Springer’s grand slam to pull the Astros to within one run at 6 to 5. For a moment it looked like we had a game, and then it didn’t.

The Yankees just kept scoring runs, ex-Cub Starlin Castro hit a three run homer to make it 9 to 5 after two innings of play, after three innings it was 12 to 5 in favor of the Yankees. Stayed that way ‘til Carlos Correa hit another bomb (460 feet or something) in the fifth inning to complete the Astros scoring, and making it a 12 to 6 ballgame.

The Yankees added a few more runs for good measure and Ivan Nova earned a four inning save pitching in relief of Pineda. It was a horrendous night for the Astros and McHugh particularly. McHugh is currently sporting a 135.00 ERA. Ouch.

Thursday’s game has a 3:05 CT start, Mike Fiers will face mound opponent homeboy Nathan Eovaldi. Friday the team travels to Milwaukee for a weekend series.

Astros Felled By Angels

Posted on June 25, 2015 by BudGirl in Uncategorized

Astros end two game series with a split.

WP: Alverez (2 – 1)
LP: Thatcher (1 – 2)

submitted by Sphinx Drummond
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Game Zone

The ability to score runs is something that comes and goes. One night your team scores 13 runs in a regular nine inning game, wasting 9 whole runs, the next day they score only one run in 13 innings. Ground Control has statistically the best of all MLB teams’ hack-able data bases in terms of crunching numbers into a cohesive game plan for success but they haven’t yet figured out how to balance out run scoring. I can’t wait for Ground Control to tap into the real-timely-hitting scoring-range-balance ratio-factor, which will allow the Astros to judicially utilize their run distribution over the course of a season for maximum benefit.

In the mean time, George Springer, who didn’t start for some reason, needs to do a better job of not getting picked off of first base and maybe Evan Gattis shouldn’t try to stretch an obvious single into a double. The Astros spit all over the top of the 8th making outs on the bases and refusing to take advantage of a prime run scoring opportunity.

Lance McCullers continued his strong rookie campaign by holding the Angels to one run, McCullers went six innings for his fourth quality start in eight outings this year, he struck out six, walked three, and allowed four hits. Seemingly the whole bullpen, Harris, Sipp, Neshek, Fields, Gregerson, Thatcher, Qualls finished out the game. Thatcher allowed the winning run to get on base, Qualls allowed the runner to score.

The Astros finish the road trip 4-4, and remain at 10 games over .500. Begining Thursday they host the 39-33 New York Yankees for four games. Dallas Keuchel (8-3) gets the series started when he climbs the mound for Houston in their 7:10 Central start against righthander Adam Warren (5-4).

No bullpen required

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Waldo in Uncategorized

May 30, 2015

Astros 3, White Sox 0

W – Keuchel (7-1)
L – Quintana (2-6)

Box Score | GameZone thread

After A.J. Hinch more or less emptied the bullpen on Friday night, he really needed to count on Dallas Keuchel to eat some innings on Saturday. He did that in spades, throwing his second complete game in as many starts and threw arguably his best start of the season, if not his career. Cychel scattered four hits, walked none, and punched out 11 Chisox (a career high) as the Astros won 3-0.

There wasn’t really any point in the game that Keuchel didn’t look dominant; all four hits were only singles and were usually followed by strikeouts. The closest the White Sox came to mounting a rally was when they got a runner to third with only one out in the 3rd, but Keuchel sat down the next two batters with Ks. Two of the other four Sox baserunners were erased on double plays.

Jonathan Villarreal provided the only needed run in the 4th inning on a sac fly, but the Astros tacked on some insurance runs in the 8th with back-to-back bombs by Evan Gattis and Chris Carter. Gattis had two hits on the day and is putting a pretty nice bow on a good ending to the month of May. Carter is the owner of a seven-game(!) hitting streak.

Sunday’s rubber game features Roberto Hernandez (2-3, 4.77) against John Danks (2-4, 5.69) at 1:10pm CDT.

Astros make magic numbers, win 6-4

Posted on May 20, 2015 by MusicMan in Game Recaps, News, Uncategorized

Astros 6, Athletics 4

W: Hernandez (2-3), L: Gray (4-2), S: Neshek (1)

HR: Muncy (2), Carter (7), Rasmus (8), Castro (5)

Box Score
Win Probability

Let’s go over the numbers, numbers that may be familiar to many of you by now. Going into Tuesday’s game, the Astros were:
23-0 when scoring at least four runs;
7-0 when tied or leading in the 7th;
17-2 when scoring first; and
17-0 when hitting more than one home run.

So if you look above, you’ll see much of what was needed to guarantee a home team victory.

The second inning was key, as Rasmus gunned down a lumbering Max Muncy on a Brett Lawrie DB, I mean 2b, and then Lawrie was himself cut down at the plate on a Fuld single. That stellar defense backed up what was otherwise an impressive outing for Roberto Hernandez, who did a good job of keeping the ball down in the zone.

In the bottom of the frame, Rasmus led off with a ringing double, followed by Carter (slowly but surely finding his stroke) pounding one to the back of the Crawford Boxes for a 2-0 lead. Those two hits moved the Astros’ win probability above 75%, where it would roughly hover while Hernandez allowed single runs in the third and sixth, sandwiched around the Astros barely cashing in on a bases loaded, nobody out situation in the fifth when Altuve made a horrible baselining decision, hesitating for several moments before dashing for the plate on a wild pitch, but way too late to beat the throw.

The 8th inning then provided the needed cushion as Rasmus and Castro went back-to-back to the right field bleachers, giving Gregerson a comfy 6-2 lead that he would try to hand back in the 9th. Fortunately Neshek came on to get the final out, and the Astros had secured their best 40-game start in franchise history.

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