Friday May 8, 2009
Astros 2, Padres o
WP: Rodriguez (3-2) LP: Gaudin (0-2) SV: Hawkins (4)
Before a considerably less than sellout crowd of 28,000, give or take, it was Wanderful Rodriguez (2-2, 2.19), Houston’s best starter, vs. the Padres’ Chad Gaudin (0-1, 5.06), a good Catholic boy from New Orleans who looks like your average white supremicist nitwit from Bumfuck, Idaho.
Wandy got off to a shaky couple of innings to start out, working out of jams in both the first (thanks to another Michael Bourn circus catch on the hillside in center field) and second innings. After that, though, the diminutive Houston lefty settled into the ol’ rocking chair, and just started dealing. The Friars are not exactly an offensive powerhouse (.216 team batting average going in); after the early difficulties, Rodriguez retired the next 16 San Diego hitters in a row. Gaudin, meanwhile, was nearly as good, mixing an assortment or riding sliders and teasing fastballs to hold the punchless Astros, tonight featuring a Berkman-less batting order, scoreless through four.
At one point, FSSW TV viewers were treated to an interview, by correspondent Patti Smith, with a bunch of sorority babes from A&M who were following the game intently from the stands, festooned in pink sweatshirts that siginified something or other. Don’t get me wrong, the sorority spokesgirl explained what they were doing there, I just couldn’t make any sense of it. At one point, she said, “Well, we’re Zetas,” like I should know what that means. Actually, I do know what that used to mean, but it’s probably not something you’d want to advertise on national regional television.
Down on the field, the game continued apace. The Astros finally broke through in the fifth inning. Pudge Rodriguez got hit by a pitch leading off. After Wandelicious fucked up a sacrifice bunt attempt, Kaz Matsui drew a walk, then Bourn was retired 3-1 on a very close play at first. So, two outs, men on 2nd and 3rd, and coming to the plate is one Hunter A. Pence, possibly one of the worst choices for third place hitter in the history of Western civilization. Pence!!, who had a flailing strikeout in a similar situation in the third, started off this crucial at bat by swinging wildly at two sliders outside, immediately putting himself in the hole, 0-2. Then amazingly, Pam Gardner’s Wet Dream took three straight similar pitches. . . before swinging at a fourth, which had edged in just a little closer to the plate than the others. He went the other way with it, no doubt against Cecil Cooper’s orders, and snuck a worm-burner between 1st and 2nd, plating the first two runs of the game.
Pence!!, by the way, is currently sporting what he calls a “rally” mohawk hairdo, which presumably helped him in the 5th inning at bat. I don’t know. I do know the mohawk makes him look even more ridiculous than he normally does, which is kind of hard to imagine.
Wandy, meanwhile, continued to be wonderful. Through eight, he still had the shutout (which was a good thing, because after the little scoring flurry in the fifth, the Astros offense went immediately back into hibernation), but he had logged 116 pitches by then and, even though he still appeared to be throwing free and easy, manager Cooper, going by the book, pulled him. Never mind that the book Cooper goes by is more like a Hunter Thompson novel than anything Connie Mack or Branch Rickey or John J. McGraw ever wrote.
Against the fervent protestations of color commentator Jim DeShaies, among others (I was throwing shit at my TV screen), Cooper brought in LaTroy Hawkins to close things out in the ninth. Thankfully, The Hawk was up to the task, and retired three straight to complete the combined shutout and earn himself a save.