Astros 4
MarONRs 3

submitted by Neil T

It’s easy to write about a bad team. There are so many ways to approach it: Anger, despair, resignation, incredulity, amusement . . . But this team is playing well, and they’re beating the Scurvy Scum Lickers, so what’s to feel but elation? Disbelief?

This is, after all, the greatest rivalry in baseball. It’s the Montagues and the Capulets, the Beatles and Rolling Stones, Colgate and Crest, the Republican Party. It’s the Astros and the Mariners.

The stadium was packed tonight. Everywhere you looked it was orange and blue or teal and silver. I swear I saw Woden, official Norse god of the Astros, brandishing his spear of orange lightening against the teal blue trident of Neptune. And it all rested on the strong right arm of the journeyman Deduno (2.70), starting against Elias (3.86).

We all know that the Astros moved to the American League so that they could face their hated rivals, the Mariners, more often. Last season I shared the storied World Series history of the Astros/Mariners, from 1903 through 1923, and before I move on to the 30s and 40s, I thought it would be worth sharing another of the greatest moments in the magnificent rivalry of these two great rivals.

Tonight, of course, tonight’s game was just one more page in a long, long book.

Bottom of the first, Altuve leads off with a walk. Gattis then homers with two outs. Marisnick homers in the bottom of the 2nd. In the top of the 3rd, Cano dirves in Austin Jackson. Deduno was replaced by Fields in the 5th. Chapman pitched two left-handers after the first out of the 6th. Neshek replaced Chapman after the first out of the 7th. Qualls pitched the 8th, and Springer hit a home run in the bottom of the 8th. Gregerson came in to close things out, and after 2 home runs allowed did. Troubling, but he did.

Villar was sparkling at short, and Springer nailed a throw from right to home. No effect, but it was a thing of beauty. Altuve had his 9th multihit game in a row. The record is 15, set in 1890. You start hitting the record book with 10.

In 1926, Little Johnny, hospitalized in New York, asked his dad for an autographed ball. The father telegraphed Babe Ruth, and after the telegraph there was a baseball signed by each of the teams in that year’s Series, the Yankees and the Cardinals. Ruth famously promised to hit the child a home run, and he delivered.

The two balls with signatures were delivered to the hospitalized child direct from St. Louis. “But dad,” said little Johnny, “I wanted the Astros/Mariners . . . “

Astros beat Padres 7-2 to take second series sweep in a row.

WP: Keuchel (3 – 0)
LP: Cashner (1 – 4)

Submitted by Mr. Sphinx Drummond

BOX

San Diego, the saint the city was named for, is also know as Saint Didacus of Alcalá. He was canonized in 1588 a hundred and twenty-five years after his death. His death is pretty interesting. He died on 12 November 1463 due to an abscess. It was said that it amazed everyone that instead of a foul odor, fragrance emitted from his infection. His body was also rumored to have remained incorrupt, did not undergo rigor mortis and continued to emit a pleasant odor. Equally amazing are the miracles he preformed after his death.

Once on a hunting trip, Henry IV of Castile fell from his horse and injured his arm. In intense pain and with his doctors unable to relieve his agony, he went to Alcalá and prayed to Didacus for a cure. The saint’s body was removed from his casket and placed beside the king. Henry then kissed the body and placed the saint’s hand on his injured arm. The king felt the pain disappear and his arm immediately regained its former strength.

Another after death miracle involved Don Carlos, Prince of Asturias, son of King Philip II of Spain, who was of a difficult and rebellious character. On the night of April 19, 1562, he was groping around in the dark after a night spent with some ladies when he fell down a flight of stairs and landed on his head. There he was found the next morning, unconscious and partially paralyzed. He later became blind, developed a high fever and his head swelled to an enormous size. In a moment of lucidity, he asked that he wanted to make a personal petition to St. Didacus. The saint’s body was brought to his chambers. The prior of the convent placed one of Carlos’ hands upon the chest of St. Didacus, whereupon the prince fell into a deep and peaceful sleep. Six hours later, he awoke and related that in a dream, he saw the saint telling him that he would not die. The prince recovered from his brush with death.

Last year at the end of the Astros season Astros’ principal owner Jim Crane made a secret trip to Seville Spain and visited the location where St Didacus’ remains remain, a chapel, the Ermita de San Diego. What is not know for sure is how Mr. Crane physically interacted with the dessicated remains of Didacus’ corpse. But as with Henry IV and Don Carlos, it appears that the after-life miracles of St Didacus continue as the Astros are in first place after the first month of the season. And Milwaukee has the worst record in the majors. FYB.

Dallas Keuchel just continues to plug away pitching like a true ace. He picked up win number three, retired something like 21 of the last 22 batters he faced. He did allow one run which raised his ERA to 0.76. Colby “Pink Floyd” Rasmus hit his 4 homerun of the year. The Astros finished their west coast road trip with an 8-1 record. Altuve got another multi-hit game and is batting .355, which isn’t the best average among regulars–that belongs to Jake Marisnick at .389.

Thursday the Astros welcome Seattle to Houston for a 7:10 pm start with James Paxton (0-2 – 6.86 ERA) facing off against Scott Feldman (2-2 – 4.81 ERA).

Astros 9, Padres 4
W: Neshek L: Benoit

MLB recap
GameZone

I can hardly wait for next Monday, the Astros have Monday night off and I will not feel the need to stay awake past the time I should be going to sleep. Yes, I’m getting old unlike the Astros. It seems as though these young boys/men like the night life. They pull out wins towards the end of the games (or so it seems to me). Monday’s win cost the team Jed Lowrie for an unspecified amount of time, since he had a questionable “slide” and injured his hand. I do not believe his status is known more than that.

While the Astros seems to enjoy swinging the bat to a tune of 177 (I’m not going to count Colin McHugh’s strike outs) They lead all major league teams by 11 strike outs. The good news is that atop of the strike out column is not an Astro but a Cub. Jorge Soler has 29 strike outs to George Springer’s 28 strike outs. Surprisingly George Springer has more than Khris Karter but I believe once Springer starts hitting is strikes outs will decrease (obviously).

A nice stat to note is stole bases, the Astros and Reds are tops with 23 stolen bases. If the batter gets on, he’s going to try and take a base. Billy Hamilton of the Reds has 13 stolen bases, the top Astros are George Springer and Jose Altuve with 7 each. So, runners on base made me wonder how many get stranded, for once this is not necessarily bad for the Astros, they are in the middle of the pack – 135 left stranded and the league average is 130. I do wonder if that has improved over the last 10 games, but I have no idea where to find that stat.

It has felt to me that when the relievers come in to relieve they have a tendency to allow the inherited runner to score. Well, this is not necessarily true. Houston is slightly above the league average (30% to 33%), but the culprits allowing the runners to score are Chad Qualls (50%) and Joe Thatcher (71%). No other reliever has allowed an inherited runner to score. I was pleasantly surprised. Now, this says nothing of what the reliever does when he enters with no inherited runners, but out of 21 inherited runners only 7 have scored. I guess the Astros’ bullpen is better than it seems.

Last week I had an online exam in a history course I took this semester (Pirates and Smuggling). The syllabus provided sample questions and I had worked on one of them because I just didn’t feel like doing more, lo and behold that one question was one of the questions I got to chose to answer. Surprisingly I only got a 32 out of 35, this is surprising because I had written most of the answer prior to taking the exam. The mid-term in which I did not draft and answer and received a 35 out of 35. Not sure I need to think I can do better with less preparation. Either way I have a 99.5 for that grade (2.5 was extra credit). One more exam and I am done for the semester and only 6 more classes to pass to be done. Ugh, mistakes we make in our youth are so much more costly to fix when we are older.