Roy said that last night it took him an inning to figure out how to take advantage of the young Marlins hitters aggressiveness. Pasadena did not.
He was up. Up with everything and the young Marlins TEED OFF on him. Teed - OFF. 4.2 innings, 13 hits, 3 homers, 10 runs, 7 earned. Cabrera and Willingham went back to back in the first, Hanley Ramirez (shaking off his OD jitters) slapped a 2 run single through a drawn in infield in the 4th. Mike Jacobs knackered a 3 run blast into the bullpen, SERGIO MITRE bounced a double off the scoreboard. If they?d been playing by the WBC rules this one would have been over by the 5th.
It just shows that you can?t give these kids any leeway, they all sudden get confident. Ramirez, goes 4 for 5, brings his bat into the field and in the 8th starts a slick 6-4-3 going into the hole.
Meanwhile, the Astros were weakly grounding out, swinging through Mitre?s sliders and changeups and generally looking tentative. Until Matt Herges showed up in the 9th they had 3 hits, 1 of them a Willy Taveras infield hit.
On the defensive side, Biggio slowed up the front end to botch a dp in the 1st. Adding a runner right before Cabrera?s homer. Ensberg booted a grounder right before Jacobs knack, adding another run. Pitching, fielding, hitting, this one won?t be in the scrapbook of misty Astro memories. The highlight was Preston Wilson?s stare down after Sergio Mitre flung two at his head and Mo?s puzzled expression when he threw one over his head. ?What?d I do??, he seemed to say.
But, never, never, ever leave a game early . Hopefully you watched the broadcast until the 9th. Otherwise you missed it. No, not Nieve?s major league debut; not Berkman?s double; not the first RBI of the season from Wilson?s infield dribbler, not Clemens removing his baleful front row stare so the team could finally score some runs. Nope, if you watched, you saw, if not, you missed it.
I think Bagwell anticipated how the night would go. He briskly walked onto the field to thunderous applause, retrieved his ring, and got a trot up as he waved to the crowd and ducked into the dugout. Tonight was not the night to be between the lines for the Astros.
Never mind, we got 160 more, Wandy goes against ex-Astros Brian Moehler, 7:05 tomorrow.
