Brandon Backe had his second straight lousy outing, this time against a less than impressive lineup of traveling Trolley Dojers visiting Kissimmee. After his six innings of work were done, Backe had allowed 7 hits, 7 earned runs, three homeruns with 4 strikeouts and 2 walks to Bingo Long's Traveling Rounders Nine. It got so bad, the batboys were grabbing a bat to take their turn to hack away at Brandon. Must be working on his pitches or he's extremely bored and can't dial up the adrenelin levels he usually calls upon to pitch impressive playoff games.
The oddity of this game was that Backe was not in line to lose this game. That honor went to Chad Harville who isn't an adrenelin freak so no excuses offered. He's just been awful this spring and for a man on the bubble and with no options, you'd kind of expect better performances. The Mud and Blood nine put Harville in a position to pitch an extra frame of baseball and possibly win, but it was all for not as he gave up a two run massive shot to centerfield by Dojer Japanese import Nakahi... Nakaho... Knock-a-homer as it turned out. This late opportunity to win the game though came by way of comeback baseball extrodinaire, as the Astros climbed out of a 7-0 deficit to tie the game late and send it into extras. The charge was led by Jason Lane (2 for 5, 2 doubles), Luke "Hobbs" Scott (2 for 5, 2 run homerun to tie the game), Jose Vizcaino (3 for 5) and newcomer Humberto Quintero (3 for 3). The relief pitching of John Franco, Brad Lidge and Russ Springer also helped give the team a chance.
The Astros now travel to DisneyWorld on Thursday to play the Atlanta Braves in their last Florida spring game before breaking camp and coming home for games in Round Rock and Houston to finish off the practice games and get going with the real stuff. Roy Oswalt takes the hill for his final tuneup as he faces off with John Smoltz. Game time noon central... be there!
