The Houston Astros and Cleveland Native Americans decided instead of playing a legit spring training game, they would take a page out of those whack Civil War re-enactment freaks and recreate the great battle of the bronx circa 2004 between the Clevelanders and the New York Yankees. That battle ended as a 22-0 rout of the Bronx men, so Houston decided to play that role of the bend over group in today's re-enactment.
Final score: Cleveland 21 - Houston 4.
Okay, not quite an exact re-enactment, but the spirit of the blistering was the same. An undercard to the game itself was the continued bad performance by yet another #5 rotation candidate. This time it was Dave Burba's turn to stink up the place and send chills down the spine of manager Phil Garner that he has run out of candidates to date that will step up and take a strangle hold on the 5th spot. Scrap Iron may be down to Zeke Astacio, a girl scout, ex-Astros broadcaster Bill Worrell and me before too long. In that order.
Astacio got into today's so-called game to spell Burba who had a bases loaded jam because he could not secure the third out in his third inning of work. Zeke managed to get the final out, but not before allowing a bases clearing double, closing out Burba's final line of ineptitude. 8 runs, 3 earned, a bizillion hits and walks (or so it seemed) in three innings of work. Out-freaking-standing! In came John Franco, Turk Wendell, Brad Lidge and Dan Wheeler to allow the remaining 13 runs. Russ Springer and Chad Qualls managed to pitch an inning each and go unscathed. Bad day all around for the Houston moundsmen. Perhaps the wind gust at Kissimmee screwed their day up somewhat, but the Cleveland pill tossers didn't have the same problems pitching against Houston.
Houston's offense was again a late inning affair accounting for three of the four runs scored today. Other than that, nothing much to report in terms of hitting prowess from the mighty Blood and Mud. Okay, time to shake this one off, call it a meaningless spring game and move on. This happens in spring so no need to panic, but the Houston Astros must be concerned about several things right now:
1. No pitcher has yet to step up to show themselves ready to take the #5 spot.
2. No offensive cohesiveness yet, leading one to believe that experimentation and waiting on a few guys to get going is in vogue. Come on Jason Lane and Morgan Ensberg, gotta get going now!
3. Craig Biggio is going to cost the team some runs wherever you put him on defense.
On Wednesday, Houston travels to the Magic Kingdom to take on the Crackers in a rare spring training night game. Roger Clemens opposes John Thomson as the Astros try their hand of getting some pieces moving in the right direction right about now.
